Durgama Takeover

I won the Lieutenant roll and opted to go first. Supplies perhaps favours going second, but I have been practicing going first of late, and I decided this would be no different - I enjoy taking the initiative and posing questions for my opponent.

I had built a list with a lot of impetuous orders and so I began by moving my Krakot, who had rolled 8-4 MOV and climbing plus on his Metachemistry roll, up to the centre under cover of the truck carrying the tech coffin. I followed this up by moving the Ghazi Muttawi’ah on my left to a supporting position behind the Krakot. I decided to forego an impetuous move for my other Ghazi Muttawi’ah and Digger, both of whom were guarding the approaches to Saladin. Finally, I moved Zuleyka and immediately met an ARO from Major Lunah. If I had been more well versed in ISS unit options I probably would have seen this coming, this is the perhaps only the second time I have faced them, but as it was Zulekya failed her dodge and died to 2 Viral Sniper hits.

With an unfortunate loss on the books from the start I decided to go for something a little more certain. I had positioned my Fiday on the edge of the centre of Mahtamori’s DZ, initially unsure of where to direct his attention. Eventually I decided eliminating the Deva/Dakini Haris team was the best option and sent him that way. After a couple of orders moving, and a lot of discover attempts failed, my Fiday rocked up with clear LoF to the whole team and proceeded to LSG template them. In the ensuing dice rolling I was disappointed to see only the Dakini paramedic go unconscious and my Fiday die to another Major Lunah ARO. Not the best trade with my Fiday, but eliminating Mahatmori’s fastest specialist would have to do.

Having lost 2 potent attack pieces for very little gain I decided to make a defensive play and activated my two Barid Hackers in sequence, successfully placing repeaters close to the North and South Tech Coffins - at least that was easy!

With orders in group 1 now running low I decided to retrieve the central supply box with my Hunzakut. She advanced and took the box easily, however Major Lunah and the - annoyingly - still living MSV2 Deva had better vantage points than I had initially thought, and so I had to settle for leaving my Hunzakut out of LoF but in the open, between the central building and the supply crates where Aida Swanson was hiding. There was a strong chance she would die whether she moved now or as an ARO, so I decided to leave here for Mahtamori to deal with in his turn. With only Tactical Awareness orders left in group 1 I decided to forego an activation for my Muyib, however, I was able to kill my opponent’s Motorised Bounty Hunter using my Namurr, somewhat diminishing the very threatening Siu Jian Duo/MBH on my left.

With things not going at all to plan I made a play which, in retrospect, I should have started with - that said it also failed, so maybe not! I advanced the Ghazi Muttawi’ah on my left, taking her around the truck carrying the Tech Coffin and all the way up to Jammer range of 9 of Mahtamori’s units. This was a huge opportunity to reduce my opponent’s regular order pool significantly and so naturally I flubbed my WIP15 Jammer roll and the attack fizzled, leaving my brave Ghazi Muttawi’ah stranded, awaiting a swift death.

With my turn over and precious little to show for it, I waited nervously for Mahtamori’s response. He began by using Major Luna to eliminate the threatening nearby Ghazi Muttawi’ah and with that pathway now clear advanced his Core Kuang Shi Fireteam up to the North Tech Coffin to retrieve the supplies there in, killing my Krakot Renegade as he did so. All I was able to do in reply was spotlight his Celestial Guard and Xi Zhuang.

Following that, the now Deva/Dakini Duo advanced spraying bullets at my Hunzakut and mercilessly putting her down, but not before she dropped a mine to protect her cargo. They then moved left into the train carriage, and destroyed my repeater by the South Tech Coffin, the Dakini HMG then moving down by the tracks and destroyed my Fanous REM.

To finish, the Pheasant Agent’s Haris team moved up to a more advanced position towards the middle of the table, ready to assault next turn.

TURN 2

Having taken a good few hits, and now even on points it was imperative that I push back as hard as I could. The centre was pretty well held by the Kuang Shi Core team, and they were threatening to roll up my left flank this turn, so I tried to go on the attack.

I skipped my impetuous orders, saving my Digger and Ghazi Muttawi’ah to defend my LT, still concerned as I was about a Siu Jian charge. I then decided to use the units I brought specifically to leverage the extra rules for this mission: The Lasiq and Muyib.

The Muyib had access to a better attack line, so I pushed him forward towards the centre of the board to assault the Deva MSV that was looking right at my Supply box. On my way I took a face to face with the Celestial Guard, however, in so doing I didn’t consider the threat posed by pistol wielding Kuang Shi and was forced dogged while knocking the Celestial Guard unconscious. With time running out for the Muyib, I decided to press on and attack the Deva MSV, but was unable to wound her, though she did guts into full cover - that would have to be good enough. I then sent the Muyib back towards the Kuang Shi fireteam to try and take out the Xi Zhuang, but again was foiled by the pistols of the Kuang Shi and my Muyib’s story ended there.

To try and neuter Kuang Shi fireteam further I stood up my Lasiq and drew a line of fire to the Xi Zhuang, death seemed certain for the Yu Jing soldier, but a lucky Flashpulse saved him and stunned my Lasiq - bad times for Haqqislam!

With options running out, I ducked my Lasiq back down and laid out another repeater by the South Tech Coffin. I then decided that my Digger had to take charge of the situation. I charged him all the way to the centre line with eyes on the Bao, CSU, and Pheasant. I retrospect I was still too cautious with him and in an effort to preserve my order pool shot my Chain Rifle at the CSU and Bao Trooper, knocking them both unconcious, but missing the Pheasant. For his troubles the Digger was put down mercilessly by the Pheasant and Major Luna.

My final couple of orders moved my Namurr to have LoF on my Supply Box and she was then dropped into Suppressive Fire.

Thankfully I had finally been able to whittle away some orders from my ISS foe, but there was still danger close at hand. With still a couple of potent gunfighters on his side, I was forced to give Mahtamori more or less free reign to move around the board at will, and so he began by advancing his Kuang Shi team. They were bearing down on my Barid hacker, which at this point was the only thing standing between the Siu Jian and the final Tech Coffin. My failure to take care of the Kuang Shi now bore terrible fruit as they traded their lives for the Barid HD and Aida Swanson, with the XI Zhuang taking station far away from my lines, safe with his Supply Box.

Mahtamori then moved his Pheasant up to the South Tech Coffin and using her Chain of Command specialist status recovered a Supply Box, making the score 5-0 at that time. However with few orders remaining the only thing left to do was move the Siu Jian into a supporting position for the Pheasant, ready for turn 3.

TURN 3

With only a handful of regular orders remaining, but with a clear goal in sight, I began by impetuously moving my remaining Ghazi Muttawi’ah towards the centre line. It then took me more orders than I would have liked to put down the ISS Pheasant Agent, and the Ghazi was killed in reply. With the Pheasant down and the score now only 3-0, I had a chance to recover some points and pride and so quickly sent my Namurr to recover the box early extracted by my Hunzakut. This unfortunately left me with no orders left to do what I had hoped, which was stand up my Lasiq and put him in Suppressive Fire to try and stop the obvious charge from the Siu Jian to win the game.

And so it was, Mahtamori wasted no time in recovering the Supply Box from the body of the Pheasant Agent, winning the game for the Imperial Secret Service. Final score 5-2 to the Imperial Secret Service.