Durgama Takeover

Infinity

Waltzes in the Void

300 POINTS
Nomads
Bakuninunbound
VS Combined Army
Philamilapeed

Prologue

The Puppet Master stalked through the dim light of the ruined section of the Raveneye station. The explosive impact of the crashed Morat gun boat, coupled with the equally explosive decompression had done a number on what appeared to have been a dining area. They had to be careful crossing these ruined portions of the ship, the Combined Army forces still controlled many of the still functional point defense turrets, and you never knew which Shadow might be concealing an enemy sniper.

Staying close to their charge, the Puppet Master overheard bits and pieces of the chatty Moderator’s conversation, but they didn’t even bother trying to piece together what was being said. Having listened to Morneau speak with her shadowy superiors, the Puppet Master was fairly certain she could have been speaking directly to an Aspect host, and the EI would still be just as flummoxed as to the meaning as her own soldiers routinely were. Even when she wasn’t intentionally obfuscating her purpose, the Rabbit Eared Bakunin was a sarcastic mystery wrapped in a flippant enigma, drenched liberally in confusion sauce.

A movement out of the corner of their eyes interrupted their train of thought, but before the Puppet Master could properly focus on what it was, a voice suddenly cried out over Morneau’s comms:

– “IT’S A TRAP! ITS HER! RUN, GET OUT!

If she takes your cube the whole game will be up and all will be lost, GO!!!” –

As if the emphasize the urgency of this statement, an impossibly fast figure was suddenly vaulting straight towards Morneau raising an alien weapon. Before the Puppet Master could intervene, a hail of red-hot metal forced them to scrabble back for cover. By the time the Puppet Master was able to look again, Morneau was already gone and the 2 Geckos assigned to the security detail were lumbering forward to meet the Monstrous Shasvastii known as Sheskin in a head to head fight.

The Table

To better simulate the hull of a ship against the void of space we opted to flip our winter map upside down, but with hindsight I see now that it made some of our pics a little dark!

Deployment

Nomad Deployment
Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Deployment (Right)
Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Deployment (Centre)
Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Deployment (Left)

Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Turn 1

With its impetuous order a Taigha surges up my right flank out of LoS while the other skips its red order to avoid getting hit by the Rifle Gecko (Unit 01).

On the roof top, a camo marker starts to advance towards the right most Moran. I don’t consider the consequences and delay with the few things that can see. As it gets closer, it drops prone and finally reveals to be a Caliban with demo charges as it crawls into b2b contact with the Moran. My turret blazes away hitting on 4’s, my Moran shoots with hit mode, the Koala goes off, Jazz hacks, and the Caliban tries to stick a demo charge to the Moran’s face. After the dust has settled, the Calabin is sitting on 2 wounds, and the Moran is erased from existence! To add insult to injury, Jazz fails her spotlight.

The Caliban starts to crawl over to the remaining Moran and gets into another gun fight with the turret, both at -6. I get lucky and 2 hits take the Caliban back down to its last wound, but it is able to get out of LoS. On its next order, it moves and attempts to dodge the remaining Koala, but fails and dies for its trouble.

Next Sheskin fires up the murder train and advances to square off against Unit 01. After an unlucky crit, the Gecko takes a whopping 5 armor saves. Luckily cover and the thick armor keeps it alive on 1 wound, and it falls back out of view. Things will only get worse from here for poor Unit 01!

Next a Shrouded on the roof top advances now that the Koalas are gone and places a mine aggressively covering the remaining Moran if it tries to advance. After this, it simply remains prone on my side of the table, comfortably covered by its own regeneration and the mines.

Caliban eats a Moran ending up with net +1 wound after the Koala!
Caliban is brought down by a Koala after it is softened up by the turret!
Sheskin crits the Rifle Gecko who fails guts on an 18 and scoots behind cover.

Nomads Turn 1

Glad to still have 2 Geckos on the table, I begin my turn trying to keep it that way! My Morlock takes her impetuous move and advances to gain line of sight on the Impersonator Token, but I draw fire from the enemy turret. I declare dodge and luckily my Phys16 carries me through. On her irregular order the Morlock passes the discover check, and after I declare discover shoot, the Speculo finally reveals and draws a BSG in hit mode. The Morlock fires its assault pistol and puts the Speculo on the ground.

After this, the wounded Gecko starts to sidle over to get LoS on Sheskin’s haris, but almost immediately is spotted by a Noctifer missile launcher while out of cover! At what is likely -12 to return fire, I dodge and luckily beat the missile, whew! After this, the Chimera throws smoke to cover the Gecko the rest of the way, and it gets to its firing position on the left flank.

On my first order, I put 3 shots into Sheskin, and 1 into the paramedic Nox trooper. Sheskin passes armor but the paramedic is KO’d. Next, I have my Moran who is currently pinned by the Shrouded place a Koala to cover Sheskin and I shoot again. She beats my shots with a dodge and moves out of LoS, nuts.

The MK 12 Gecko (Unit 02) fires up its powerplant and advances to draw a bead on the right exposed Taigha and puts its in the dirt despite it rolling a 17 for its armor save. In another order, it is able to punk the enemy turret at long range. Finally, it tries to “In Extremis Recovery” the Speculo but fails. The Morlock then spends the Libertos’ irregular to accomplish the classified.

The EVO bot puts up fairy dust and a coordinated order just sees the Tags reposition. I hold both my quadrants and Shas hold only 1 of theirs.

Score 3-0 Nomads

Morlock uses its weirdly high Phys and WIP to get close to, and then discover the Speculo killer.
Unit 01 takes down the Nox Paramedic, but in 2 orders can't damage Sheskin before she slinks back out of line of sight.
Morlock uses its WIP14 to pick up the slack after Unit 02 flubs on a 17!

Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Turn 2

The remaining Taigha takes its impetuous order and advances towards the gap between the two buildings the Morans deployed under.

Next the Noctifer sees a cheeky shot and shoots a Pupnik standing too close to the Chimera who can’t see it. The whole team is hit, and the Chimera and a Pupnik go down. The next order sees the disconnected Pupnik unable to dodge and the second missile kills the 2 downed models and puts the rest into unconscious.

Next, Sheskin starts to advance and climb the building connected to the cat walks while allowing the Jayth to advance towards Unit 01. On her next order, Sheskin further pushes the Jayth forward and draws a bead on the turret. The Jayth is spotlit, and Sheskin is unfortunately crit by the turret! Luckily she passes 1 armor save, and is this time able to get to cover. On her next order, she is able to easily overpower the turret.

At this point, the Jayth advances, and speculative tosses an E/M Grenade over the wall at poor Unit 01 hitting and turning the mech into a 56-point paper weight. Womp womp.

Finally, the remaining Taigha makes a run into my zone to shoot the flash pulse bot and draw my mine. The mine takes out the Taigha before Unit 02’s shot can impact, but the flashpulse bot is KO’d. His final order is a coordinated order to bring his baggage bots into his zones and advance Sheskin further up the field prone on the roof.

Noctifer threads the needle through a hole in the crashed ship and pastes the Uberfall team!
The little turret that could! Turret fires at -6 and scores a crit knocking a wound off Sheskin!
Poor Unit 01 is wounded, isolated, AND immobilized! (Spoiler, it's situation doesn't improve from here)

Nomads Turn 2

If I can score 2 points this turn, the game is mine. My Morlock takes her impetuous order to sneak further up the right flank. My Prowler chooses this moment to make its dramatic entrance, appearing out of thin air behind the Jayth that powered down the Gecko. The Prowler shoots it in the back, hitting twice, and removing it from the table. At this point, I reckon that it is my Prowler KHD vs a flashpulse bot and Shrouded Mine layer for that quadrant. I proceed to try and have my Libertos dodge his way past the Noctifer into that quadrant, but he is immediately discovered and blown away.

My engineer goes to repair the Flashpulse bot and fails despite a reroll. Luckily on my next order the bot whirs back to life. The Flashpulse bot then zooms forward and manages to dodge the Noctifer not once, but twice! Comfortably tucking into the Shas quadrant with the Prowler. Unit 01 uses its 2 orders to try and reset, but no luck. These are all the orders I have, so I pass the turn.

I am confident I have the game until my opponent points out that the KO’d Nox paramedic is in that quadrant and still contributing its points, damn Shasvastii rule! I had hemmed and hawed between AP & Shock when I shot at it and Sheskin and ended up going for AP against Sheskin. Argh!

In the end my opponent has 46 points and I only have 43 so the zone goes to Shasvastii making it 2 quadrants each!

Score 4-1 Nomads

Prowler materializes behind Jayth and avenges poor Unit 01!
Ignore my watermelon nails as.

Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Turn 3

To win, the Shas force needs to score more quadrants, needs to hold one of mine, and needs to complete a classified. With Geckos still alive (even if Unit 01 is on its last legs and drowning in status effects), the Shas force springs into action! In 2 orders, the Noctifer pastes the Prowler who was currently pinning down Sheskin and the Shrouded mine layer, but unfortunately facing the wrong way.

Next the Shrouded Minelayer climbs through the ruins and sneaks past the Flashpulse bot towards the stricken Unit 01. It takes 2 orders worth of shooting, but eventually the Shrouded is able to put the Gecko in unconscious, though it is spotlit for its trouble.

Sheskin stands up and advances along the roof of the central building, killing the Flashpulse bot on the way. She lines up a shot on Unit 02 and hits 3 times, but only 1 shot makes it through the armor. The Gecko decides that discretion is the better part of valor and sidles 2 inches out of line of sight. Sheskin has 1 more order and can just advance to see the Gecko at the very edge of the roof with her last order.

Time stands still as the monstrous Shasvastii lets loose a long burst and Unit 02 squeezes off a desperate round… counter crit!!! Sheskin hits 4 times including a crit, but the Gecko’s 13 prevents all damage!

Noctifer pastes the Prowler facing the wrong (pardon my watermelon nails)
Shrouded bullies the isolated + immobilized + wounded Gecko. Jerk!
Dramatic counter crit saves Unit 02 and gives Nomads the game!

Nomads Turn 3

That last crit saved the game for me, go Unit 02! I need to either score one of the Shas zones, or keep the zones scored to 2-2. I start off by trying to have my Clockmaker’s Zondbot belly crawl to repair Unit 01, and he of course rolls a 20 -_-. So much for that plan!

Sighing and muttering “if you want something done right, do it yourself” my Lt. peeks forward and shoots at the Shrouded currently scoring my left quadrant. Thanks to the targeted state the Shrouded is taken off the table. After this, my EVO bot advances to enter the zone and score it for the Nomads. Next, it is a simple matter of having Unit 02 sidle up towards the Shas right quadrants to score it against the Ikadron.

Final Score 6-3 Nomads.

Bringing it up to 3/4 Engineer rolls failed on 15's... Man I need to paint that other Clockmaker.
"If you want something done properly, do it yourself" - Morneau (Moderator Lt.)
The EVO bot is finally useful for something! Being worth points :P
What it felt like when the Gecko crit.

Epilogue

– “Commander, COMMANDER!” – The Puppet Master’s typically monotone voice rose in volume and intensity to the point where a normal person might almost have mistaken it for genuine concern.

They had lost track of their charge in the opening salvos of the ambush, and until just recently had been pinned on a roof top as the enemy dueled with the automated defense turret. The incoming fire was so intense that the Puppet Master couldn’t even glance over the railing. Devoid of their usual Tactical Puppets, and with their charge no where to be seen in the middle of a fire fight, the Puppet Master felt truly useless.

Finally, in a brief respite from the shooting, the cloaked figure sprung to their feet and with a run, leapt of the building in the direction they had last seen Morneau. Sprinting around a corner at top speed, the Puppet Master was ill-prepared when it almost collided with the hooded Shasvastii skulking away from the smoking remains of one of the Geckos.

The Shrouded’s surprise was short lived, and the Puppet Master saw its mandibles twist into a facsimile of a smile as it raised its alien rifle to its shoulder. Before it could pull the trigger though, the high-pitched staccato of a Nomad service rifle erupted behind it and the menacing alien crumpled to the ground.

Peeking from her vantage point, Morneau smirked with satisfaction “What, did you think I lugged this thing around for the aesthetic value? Now lets get going, Unit 02 will hold them off till we can scramble reinforcements, but right now we need urgently relocate, this place is way too hot for a simple Moderator like me”.

Her smugness hadn’t entirely disappeared, but the Puppet Master thought they might finally have seen a crack in their charge’s nigh ever-present unflappability.

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