Durgama Takeover

So a while ago I had an idea to make a “pano billionaire paid Praxis Labs to make Jurassic Park” board, then TAG raid came out with the mega beast missions and having played them a couple of time decided that THEY ARE NOT HARD ENOUGH. And when we’ve proxied the lizard in the middle as a steindrage players have kept their distance rather than getting stuck in.
Therefore having organized a game with Xela and with his approval I’ve redesigned “Welcome to monster land” (mission is in the army lists section)

Again this is set in Darpan, the board we’re playing on is already Jungle/Aquatic terrain, we’ll be playing with the +1 Lt order, the +4” DZ however goes somewhat against the mission so we’ve left that out.

Oh so you want to know what’s in the “cloud dome”? That’s a big question. So you know that dome is for growing plants from the Khurland region of Dawn right? Yeah that’s the official company line. The research team did come back with seed pods and spectral readings from the monsoon swamps in the south east of the region but they also brought back some fauna samples. I mean whatever lives in khurland is probably classifiable as a bio-weapon right? Anyway so there’s the usual bugs, bugs and more bugs; big things they are too one of them took down the Ramhorn the team went in with- What’s that? Yeah a Ramhorn, apparently all the background radiation in Khurland messes with Remote presence tech so they had to go in manned. Anyway so they got the bugs right and then they found this nest, so apparently the swamp is actually some sorta hot spring, water is like 60°C, and these bugs didn’t go anywhere near it, but in the middle partially submerged are these eggs, round things bout a meter across anyway they call in the dropship and manage to haul one out with a couple of the research team and the rest of the samples and drop in another Triphammer to take over for the ramhorn, dropship takes about an hour and a half each way. By the time it comes back the rest of the research team is gone, so are the eggs, and half the soaking wet mangrove swamp is on fire.

Yeah, yeah so the egg hatched after they incubated it more, some big lizard, they put it in what is now cloud dome, turns out they get big and they’re crazy; the things body temperature clocks in at 240°C and it lives in water, the spines on its back are heat sinks so all those clouds and that constant rainfall isn’t the atmospheric controls, it’s just that thing sleeping under the water to cool down. There’s all sorts of predators they’ve been cooking up in that dome, they all steer pretty far clear of “Specimen K” so as long as you don’t piss it off it’s about the safest place to be.

So yeah that’s why there’s a “geyser” in the cloud dome, giant, science defying, fire breathing monster, basically a little fusion reactor literally shitting out neo materials, thing is worth an absolute fortune.

No, the company has tried to get another expedition to Khurland but even the Mining companies aren’t mad enough to actively try to steal Megabeast eggs and “K” hasn’t even stopped growing yet so we don’t know how big its momma was. But the size of the Khurland monsoon and the size of “K’s” you can extrapolate, estimates say another 5 or six years K will be mommas size.

Releasing the neural restraint on the Taigha the creature streamed forwards on the hunt for prey, as it's claws splashed noisily into the standing water a rumble came from beneath.

+ IT IS COMING, ALL UNITS BE READY +

Heedless to danger Daturatzi Ghent Steams forward towards the Megabeast, narrowly avoiding the creatures close in fire breath and edging ever closer.

Overcome by the thrill of a hunt in a fully armed Raziot, Shenar loses herself completely in a trigger happy barrage of the Megabeast heedless of the incoming fireballs.

The barrage of fire is intense and begins to leave significant damage on the creature. In an attempt at a different tack the Taigha sees a viable target and takes it's chance.

Tired of waiting before a worthy foe Ghant charged in to tie up the beast, dying in a spectacular fashion to the flame breath, while Shenar continued to pour ammunition into the creature

OOC: It had now sustained 4 wounds

Seemingly tired of being riddled with Morat Gauss cannon fire the Monster retreated back beneath the surface to lick it's wounds, and began immediately regenerating.

Content to let the creature rest for a moment the Aspect began sweeping the field for locations for the Specialist Researcher he was hunting, immediately selecting the correct marker but failing to kill the Dr as he went to ground

Now eluded by their second target, the Aspect became frustrated, ordering the Tyrok huntress who had been biding her time in the elephant grass to attempt to lure out the Megabeast, it didn't take the huntresses bait and continued to lurk under the surface of the water, regenerating another two wounds instead of rising from the depths to attack.

While the beast did not take the bait of the hunter the Marut did, striding forwards to shoot the near defensless hunter in the cloud of steam produced by the megabeast beneath the surface, however as soon as the TAG approached towards the pool, the Beast rose from the depths, the Tyrok was ripped apart by HMG rounds but the Marut was damaged by the ambush strike (guard) of the megabeast emerging from it's lair.

The Marut falls back whilst firing, inflicting several large hits on the Megabeast which stubbornly refuses to fail a guts check and return to its lair to regenerate.

Eventually the creature's will caves and it dives back beneath the surface, A proxy begins inspecting the hiding locations on the combined army right flank to try and reveal the Speculo agent...

Instead she finds a predator and is promptly attacked and wounded*

(OOC: mislabled the proxy MK 2 as a naga above)

Rushing to the rescue a Myrmidon engages the predator inflicting wounds upon it and using the service mousehole to get from one side of the perimeter fence to the other.

Crossing to the other side he slays the creature in CC but the commotion has activated another combatant.

The megabeast (who has now recovered several wounds) rises from the depths and catches the myrmidon while it engages the predator.

Slammed by another Barrage of Shenars Gauss cannon the creature retreats again to it's lair wounded a little more than before.

Untroubled by the megabeast or the now dead myrmidon or predator, the caliban moves to the service mousehole* Triggered again by the vibration the Megabeast returns from the lair.

(ooc, the caliban chose to move without stealth to try to trigger the megabeasts territorial rule)

Shenar wastes no time pouring more and more shots into the creature, scoring headshot after headshot as the fireballs go wide, eventually dropping the beast,

(OOC, In a spectacular act of overkill the Megabeast failed three saves on the final roll meaning i had overall inflicted more wound on the creature (10 - 9) for 2 OP, killed the beast for 2 OP, and killed with the master hunter for 1 OP)

With the creature and oversight removed the caliban makes short work of the wounded proxy and the Designated target, increasing to maximum power up markers as he feeds

The Rudra moves to engage the caliban but crosses Aspect Gravitons overwatch sustaining a hit.

The caliban evades the Rudras attack and dodges closer to the Marut demo charge in hand, the marut spends several orders nano pulsing and firing it's HMG at the caliban as it falls back.

Eventually the post human engineer manages to get the final hit on the Caliban ending his threat to the Marut.

The Marut and Rudra push round engaging the Charontid Armature of Aspect Graviton (and inflicting a wound) however the Marut catches the full force of one of the Raicho's Anti material rounds, crashing to the ground.

Shenar pushes forward but has to skirt the elephant grass destroying a probot which had skipped the breach in the fence. Having circumnavigated the mangroves she engages in a ferocious fight with the rudra which scores 2 wounds on Shenar.

After Shenars failure Ko Dali enters, advancing on the Rudra and tearing it apart with her assault pistols.

The servant runs to repair the marut and Ko Dali dodges into combat with the marut as it reactivated. The marut attempts to get out of combat but is finally destroyed by Ko Dalis D charge.

As a final act the Dasyu moves from cover and shoots at both Ko Dali and the Aspects Charontid, deftly destroying both with a well placed anti material round.

The aspect lost the battlefield uplink for a moment but the Dasyus shot was already too little too late, the agent had been extracted, the megabeast researcher was dead and the beast itself would not be providing further scientific value, even now its immense heat was disintegrating the corpse its last burst of neo materials.

So we really enjoyed this game watching a myrmidon kill an allosaurus in close combat only to be eaten by Godzilla sparks joy like little else. Big thanks to forgedinfury who's game had fallen through who we gave control of the beasts too which added a certain amount of random and he seemed be having fun, even if with his rolling the monster could only ever fail guts VS me, would fail detects for territorial and the highest is could seemingly roll vs the marut was 4 while passing all its guts checks.

Lots of fun to play as said mission is in the armylist section.

In the end the score was 10-0 but that was a close run thing, if the marut stayed up Xela would have had more AP remaining. If a myrmidon nanopulser has a gnats more range I'd have possibly lost the caliban before dinner time. Had the beast passed 1 more save we'd have tied on wounds inflicted (honestly thought I'd lost that one).