Durgama Takeover

“Fascist space pigs!” Morneau screamed as she let loose with her rifle dropping the brain washed Japanese citizen who had been stumbling in her direction with a chain rifle loosely clutched in her numb fingers.

“Twice in as many days I actually get to fire it” she mused to herself with much more mirth than her earlier declaration.

The battle was unfolding pretty much as she had expected. The Nomad breaching force pulled together from elements of each of the ships had hurled itself against the entrenched Yu Jing soldiers. Almost immediately the battle devolved into disordered chaos as both of the Geckos blossomed into fire balls, and the forward elements of the force were singled out and eliminated as their shots miraculously flew wide of their targets.

Credit to her counterpart, the massacre was orchestrated to perfection, the slaughter far ahead of schedule. She was brought back from her musings as she saw a heavily armored figure materialize at the corner of the shed at the extreme range of her rifle. The bullets impacted her before she could even register the thought of moving. As she crumpled to the ground, she could hear the desperate sounds of the battle drawing to a close, and the ominous sound of armored footsteps crunching towards her.

Nomads vs. Yu Jing

300 Points Annihilation (Durgama variant, but without the bikes)

Yu Jing wins the initiative roll and opts to choose deployment. Nomads take first turn. The Morlock rolls Super Jump and the game is off! As a note, I didn’t have either of my Moran’s deploy mines as I was going first and I figured I would use them to force bad ARO’s from his ARO shooters.

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The Morlock takes her impetuous move and throws smoke to cover a lane against where I fear a Hundun might be lurking. The Chimera at team end up moving towards the building with the left Moran on it, intent on using a Pupnik as a mine clearing device, but they don’t make it far enough.

I deployed the Prowler with a good line of sight to one of his camo markers and it reveals to discover shoot. At -6 my opponent opts to idle, and I roll a 3! This will be 1 of two times the dice go in my favor this game, so savor it while it lasts! I shoot unopposed on 9’s missing all 4 shots against the Guilang Minelayer. To seal the deal, I have my right Moran place a Koala above the Guilang and on my next order, I shoot again against its dodge, missing all shots while it passes. It scoots out of sight. Behind the loud I so generously gave it (it has MSV1). I have the Moran place a 2nd Koala above the Guilang, and move my Morlock into the smoke hoping to lure the Guilang into shooting and dying from a Koala. Instead, the Guilang templates the Morlock who fails their dodge and dies, while the Guilang casually passes their armor save. Off to a great start…

But that’s okay! This list isn’t about Morlocks, Morans, OR Prowlers! Its about Geckos right?! The Mk12 Gecko (Unit 02) advances and draws a line of sight on the Beast Hunter, and a Hundun Rocket reveals! I put 2 shots into the Hundun, and 1 into the Beast Hunter. Even if I take a wound or 2, I feel like it will be a victory to just reveal the Hundun. Instead, I miss all 3 shots and go into unconscious…

But that’s okay! This list has TWO Geckos! I fire the Rifle Gecko (Unit 01) up and start advancing up the right flank with that sweet 7-2 move. With how they are placed, I will have to engage the Hundun and the Beast Hunter together, but that’s fine, I am in good range on both, and the Beast Hunter is out of cover. Before doing this though, a Pupnik triggers the mine covering the left Moran, and that Moran places a Koala covering the Hundun.

The Gecko pokes out and bullets fly! Both of this models dodge and I put 3 into the Hundun and 1 in to the Beast Hunter with the Koala running after the Hundun. I miss all 4 shots (3 needing 10’s, and 1 needing a 13) and the Hundun dodges the Koala. I am out of orders to place more Koalas sadly, so I just continue shooting. To cut a long story short, I once against lose both face to face rolls, and after 2 orders, Unit 01 is ALSO in the ground.

Desperate to make some progress, I get flustered and try and pull the Prowler back to safety, only for it to be miss all shots (admittedly on bad dice) and have the Hundun hit the long range shot killing it.

With my few remaining orders, I have my Zond Bot try and dodge its way towards Unit 02, but while it makes it there safely, it runs out of orders before it can repair the mech.

So top of 1, I have lost 150 points of my army, and not caused a single wound. The only progress to speak of has been to force the Beast Hunter to spend it’s 2 Panzerfaust shots… OOF!

At this point the battle is honestly mostly over. My memory is a little hazy on the specifics, but after Unit 02 tanks a couple Hundun shots while unconscious, the Hac Tao reveals and takes it off the table. Next, the Guilang that wouldn’t die casually scoots back around the corner and puts Unit 01 out of it’s memory.

He didn’t kill much on his turn, but that’s fine, he didn’t need to, I did it for him on my turn!

With no real attack pieces left, I figure I can at least take vengeance on the Hundun. My Chimera runs around the building with her impetuous and smokes the space between the buildings to get closer. Next she pokes out of smoke to shoot a monk that had advanced and of course he just dodges easily despite my hitting on 14’s. I try having my Libertos come out to shoot, and predictably the Monk easily smoke dodges.

Once again flustered, I place a Koala in preparation of making my run against the Hundun. This was a mistake because when my Chimera steps out of smoke to shoot the Monk AGAIN, the Beast Master simply dodges and waste the Koala. And of course the monk passed armor. FEH! At least a Pupnik moved out to sacrifice itself to detonate 2 mines.

Knowing that the Monk had to die, the Moran on the building stands up and takes 2 shots at the Monk. Miraculously, the monk goes down and the Moran actually passes armor from the Hundun and drops prone again.

With just 3 orders left, the Chimera throws a smoke from out of line of sight to advance on the Hundun’s building. On my final order, the Chimera and 2 remaining Pupniks scale the wall drawing all sorts of ARO’s. All 3 go down to the Beast Master’s heavy flame thrower on the way in. One Pupnik attacks the Hacker on the roof, but despite winning the face to face, the hacker casually passes both armor saves. The Chimera and the other Pupnik gang up on the Hundun, critting once and hitting once. Despite 5 BTS saves needing 12’s the Hundun ONLY GOES UNCONCIOUS! I couldn’t even get my proper vengeance -_-.

Well aware this wasn’t going my way, I use my Lt. order to stand my Moderator (Morneau) up to shoot at a Kwuangshi that had stumbled forward earlier. My terrible choice is rewarded by a crit! And my opponent manages to accidentally fail an armor save! Ha! Die stupid Kwuangshi!

My Lt. is now standing up on a roof right across from the Hac Tao. #totallyworth.

At this point it truly is just mopping up the dregs. He starts the turn by obligatorily having his HacTao shoot my Lt. to death.

Next, the Guilang that was still hidden advances and gets into a shotgun fight with the Moran. 3 template shots later and neither was willing to admit the other won, but also neither of them were alive.

After this, my opponent’s Hac Tao goes on a rampage, killing a Flash Pulse Bot and getting in my deployment zone to the kill the Puppet Master.

Next the Guilang on the right that still hasn’t died sneaks up behind the Moran on the right and punks him in the back.

He finally runs out of orders as my Flashpulse bot survived a whopping 2 orders worth of shots, but the HacTao is well

With my remaining orders, I send the Fishman at the Beast Hunter who wouldn’t die, and finally, I kamikaze him into heavy flame thrower range to make the brilliant trade of an 8 point model for a 9 point model (this took 3 orders). #Stilllworthit

I accomplish nothing else of note on my turn.

My opponent politely spends just enough orders to finish off my other flash pulse bot and 2 Zond Bots bringing my down to just Jazz, Billie, and the Clock Maker and getting him his maximum murder points. However, as I heroically managed to kill slightly over 70 points of his army, I DID prevent him getting a perfect 10-0 victory, so take that State Empire! Ha!

Score is 9-0 for Yu Jing!

3 weeks after the incident a woman with blue hair and the ears of a rabbit strolled into a bar in one of the quieter neighborhoods on Concilium and sat down beside a handsome and fit looking Yu Jing officer. It was rare to see someone obviously from Bakunin hanging out with a Yu Jing citizen with the recent violence between the two nations. The story was still fresh in the public’s mind, and in fact a news commentator was still replaying elements of the story on the TV in the corner of the bar.

“You look good for a dead woman” the Yu Jing officer stated smugly.

You aren’t so hard on the eyes yourself” retorted the Moderator with a mocking tone, “nice shooting by the way, I must say, it is nice working with professionals for a change”.

“Judging by the reactions on Maya, it looks like our little piece of theatre has gone off without a hitch, no one suspects a thing. You must be pleased”.

“Its not my best work, but its hardly my worst” responded the Moderator, who was obviously much more impressed with her own handy work than she was willing to admit.

“I must inquire, what gave you the idea that staging such a lopsided skirmish could galvanize both of our peoples so?”

“It was a simple calculation” Morneau answered. “You rule your people through your might, so a flawless victory will support your government’s perceived infallibility.” She paused to sip the bright green drink the automated bar tender poured her, “My people on the other hand, well, we love to style ourselves as the ‘Good Guys’, the ‘Plucky Underdogs’ surrounded by cruel imperialistic and morally bankrupt security states. This supposed massacre will become a rallying cry and up recruitment numbers across all 3 ships for years.”

“Your arrogance could be your downfall” the Hac Tao retorted, “all it takes is for one of the soldiers who was present to leak the truth to Maya or your Arachnae and the ruse will be up”.

“Of course they will leak the truth, I am pretty sure I saw one of them texting about it while it was happening” Morneau grinned. “But that’s the beauty of it, a random Nomad soldier crying conspiracy and claiming our military defeat was a ruse or “Fake News” will only reinforce in the minds of the sphere that the events we have presented are true. As for your people, don’t you have a whole secret service to ensure compliance?” She added tauntingly.

“Even if such an organization did exist, it would be entirely superfluous. Unlike your troops, mine understand the meaning and the value of discipline. If they are ordered not to speak, they will not” the Hac Tao replied serenely.

“Mmm, I love the way your voice sounds when you spout state sponsored propaganda” Morneau purred again, cozying up to the Yu Jing officer who simply raised an eye at her.

“Is all of this, this war, these soldier’s lives, the fate of humanity, a joke to you?” the Hac Tao asked, less of a provocation and more as a legitimate question.

“Of course not” Morneau sighed sitting back up, her smile fading, “its just that unlike you rough and tough solider boys, I was cursed at a young age to perceive the bigger picture. Its not guns, soldiers, or even ships that win wars, it’s a game of information, more specifically controlling information, and using it to your purposes. The Shasvastii understand this well, which is what makes them so dangerous. Morats could kill a hundred, a thousand, even 10 thousand troops, and humanity could sustain those losses indefinitely, but a couple well placed assassinations or a falsified reports seen by the wrong eyes, these can lose us the war in a matter of weeks. This is why I do what I do, to make sure humanity survives long enough for brave and skilled soldiers like yourself to die in the meat grinder and buy us another year of freedom”. By this point all the mirth had left the Moderator’s face as she callously inspected the dregs of her drink.

The Hac Tao’s countenance had likewise shifted, now uneasy and tense.

“Like, I said, it isn’t that complex, the stakes we are playing with are simply too high to take chances on.” The Moderator finished her drink, got up and left, leaving the Yu Jing officer to ruminate on what she had said.