Durgama Takeover

Reviewing the intelligence taken by the Dark Star Compact from their previous mission on Concillium, Aspect Graviton had identified a small research station nested in the jungles surrounding point Zebu.

The facility had been identified as key node in the research being conducted at Zebu, with the expansive offensive currently taking place the EI could not seize the station and hold it, but if the information could be stolen and then the facility destroyed that would certainly suffice. And from them on simple area denial would be all that was required.

Unfortunately since the Aspects Armatures and field assets were deployed elsewhere in the conflict, the Aspect finished the requisition of an Onyx Contact Force strike team but also some fast bombers, on board he placed a payload of bombs of his own design containing one of his very favourite partially sentient devourer nanite weapons.

The Aspect ordered the strike team to retrieve the data at the station and withdraw, and gave the order for the bombers to liberally bomb the area around Zebu with the Nanite weapon, the time between the strike and the spread of the plague would be precise and the timeframe narrow but he measured all objectives could be successfully accomplished.

As part of the advanced preparation an Immetron unit was dropped from orbit landing squarely in the operational zone at the outskirts of the facility, having seized initiative the Strikeforce would have to approach from the south of the compound and quickly moved into position with the Xeodron team on the left flank and the Onyx team taking the centre while the Unidron team made it to the outlying building left of centre. Even with the rush to deploy ahead of the spreading nanite weapon Ko-dali and Legate Maul manage to get slightly ahead of the main force despite the physical strain.

The Imperial Service Garrison rushed to position, even with knowledge of the terrain the garrison struggled and their advanced scoot a ninja got into difficulties avoiding the nanite cloud resulting in her barely reaching the battlefield ahead of the death cloud.

The heavier elements of the IS team lined up behind the lip of the thicker jungle while the lighter elements took position in the impenetrable clumps of foliage around the base.

The OCF forces with seconds to spare swarmed uinto the research station sticking close to the shadow of the buildings to avoid any incoming fire from the IS forces and quickly taking the central high ground provided by the base. The Kurgat pushed slightly further out prior to retreating to the buildings, throwing out some drop bears to attempt to cover the right flank, one landed on the low conduit wall as intended, the other bounced off into the thick mud surrounding the station.

Meanwhile on the extreme left flank Ko-dali had pushed forwards into a threatening position and took on the role of advanced guard and moving up gunned down one of the celestial guard catching their breath at the edge of the compound with her Voodoo tech rifle. Having drawn first blood ko-dali remained in place to slow the advance of enemy troops.

Having been dishonoured by the human drawing first blood Suryat Kodrak now pushed forwards to engage the heavy infantry sheltering in the jungle on the right flank and using his gauss cannon to full effect ripping their heavy rocket launcher apart with a precision burst of fire.

The Xeodrons now pushed past the central line of the facility to engage the Imperial forces where they were preparing, CX-5 gunned down the celestial guard, the pheasant agent and the Sophotech with consecutive bursts of high powered laser fire before.

CX-6 then floated down from its higher vantage point, catching sight of a Wu Ming as it fell before discharging it’s EM pulse weapon disabling the heavy infantry’s power armour.

With the initial momentum of their surprise attack expended the Strikeforce prepared to receive the imperial service counter attack.

Fearing the Nanite cloud spreading behind them the Wu Ming pushed forward into the waiting gauss cannon of Suryat Kodrak, severely disrupted by casualties the fireteam had lost much of it’s unity and the few hits scored by the Wu Ming wielding a HMG bounced harmlessly off the Suryat’s armour while Kodraks “Hsak” gauss cannon wounded him in return but the Wu ming did manage to get to a forward position.

The Su-Jian rapid response unit also pushed up, charging through the jungle at maximum speed but also catching a destructive burst of gauss cannon fire sending it’s panzerfaust shots wide.

In an attempt to clear a path the Hsien in operational command managed to clear away the drop bear in the teams way with some bursts of marksman rifle fire. Before moving across to engage the Xeodron CX-5 in overwatch.

While CX-6 had expended it’s EM weapon’s charge against the Wu-Ming CX-5’s countermeasure was still fully operational, with a shocking blast the blitzen shut down the armoured agents powered armour, while he struggled to reboot the armour the Xeodron relentlessly poured fire into him inflicting damage with its armour piercing quantum laser.

The Yu jing force was out of time, stalled by the Onyx forces arrayed against them the Biotechvore plague swept in from behind them choking several of them including the now mobile Hsien and the pinned ninja; and dissolved some of the bodies left by the combined army attack.

While the rest of the team and the su jian were battered by gauss cannon fire but clear, the HMG trooper who had been slowed by the jungle and firefight’s armour began to blare contamination warnings but the onboard Nanite countermeasures were holding for now.

The partially sentient cloud of Nanites receded for now leaving the dying and some crumbling bones in their wake.

Taking advantage of the desperate position of the enemy CX-6 hovered down from it’s perch on the facility drawing line of fire to the slightly damaged Su Jian, as it attempted to evade a rapid burst from the quantum laser of CX-6 shredded the construct in an instant as brutal display of force.

Meanwhile taking advantage of the chaos caused by the biotechvore plague, Kodali pushed forwards and dug out the cube of the dying ninja, the black ops agent would undoubtedly have valuable information which could be extracted by the EI’s quantronic interrogators, probably Aspect Graviton himself, who seemed to relish such opportunities with spirited “guests”.

Meanwhile on the right flank Kodrak was in his element gunning down the remnants of the Wu-Ming team who were caught crossing the open to escape the Nanite weapon.

The now sole survivor of the Wu Ming squad who had been bricked by the Burst from CX-6 attempted to reset his armour and failed, panic began to set in as he saw the glowing cloud of nanites return and envelope his inert armour, he could hear pieces sloughing away and crumbling to dust.

Seeing the display ahead Umbra Maul pushed up slightly, hacking one of the base personnel and gathering survey telemetry data from the dying Wu-Ming HMG.

Having received the instruction from the Aspect the team withdrew into the jungle leaving crumbling bones in the eerie silver green glowing mist behind them.

Wu Ming K2709 had finally reset his obsolete power armour, but it was far too late this time the Biotechvore nanites would take his life and he would not regain his name and his honour. There would be no survivors from the IS garrison as the cloud began to digest the small research station now that its magnetic nanite defences were failing.

Meanwhile in the Quantronic environment of the EI Aspect Graviton had a wealth of new information to absorb, the data ripped from the com log of the facility worker was invaluable, The Wu-Mings data pointed to possible refinements which could be mage in regards to the nanite weapon (apparently the forces garrisoned here had some slight additional protection which had slowed its effects) finally the ninja, her mind contained useful information about the yu jing personnel stationed on Concilium, he could use that. At this moment her consciousness was being ripped apart and reassembled into a more pliable and useful format, apparently it’s quite a painful experience.

I’d like to say this game wasn’t all one way traffic, but it was.

Unfortunately my opponent had a bit of a moment and took what was probably the worse DZ, he also set up his Core link in a sector of the board which while it does offer protection basically strips link bonuses (low vis -3 and saturation -1b) which let me get into a decent position and brute force away his better reactive piece.

His ninja’s mis adventures also messed with his plan and the lack of heavy reactive fire in the centre allowed the xeodron team to advance unmolested into a very good location.

This led to him losing some key pieces and being under scrutiny by two linked TAGs for his own turn. He also wasn’t helped by his own dice where the Wu Ming rolled a lot of 14’s when it was trying for 13’s.

In the end his inflicted casualties were: a drop bear.

Classifieds wise I managed to scoop up Extremis recovery after the Biotechvore plague did in the lost ninja, which took a considerable order expenditure but needed to be done quickly, finally since there is no retreat, while the suryat was finishing off the wu ming the umbra hacker was pushing up and managed to score HVT espionage from the HVT and observed the maimed Wu-ming HMG for Telemetry.

I had originally thought I’d left a model alive, but since the wu ming was still bricked the Bio techvore plague finished him off for me. So it ended up 400-0

As always, thanks for reading.