Durgama Takeover

Shasvatii win the Lt roll and choose to go second.

An authorized Bounty Hunter takes its Impetuous movement, fully aware that doing so opens up several of its allies to an unopposed Boarding Shotgun from the Impersonating Speculo Killer. Two MBH go down to the shot and Perseus suffers a Wound, but the Speculo Killer is knocked unconscious by the MBH’s dual Chain Colts in the process. The Nomad Paramedic rushes over and successfully revives the second bounty hunter, who takes off towards the Shasvatii lines. Along the way, he Discover + Shoots a Shrouded FO, who fails to dodge the Shotgun template, followed by another Discover + Shoot on the Shrouded Minelayer (Dazer), who also dies in the exchange. On the other side of the board, another MBH gets up to the Shasvatii lines, killing a Taigha and Discover + Shooting a Caliban Engineer, who also fails to dodge the attack. The Shasvastii seek revenge and reveal a Malignos Sniper to kill the Bounty Hunter that shot the Caliban. Then, Raoul Spectre walks in from Airborne Dpeloyment, using the Malignos’ building as cover. He makes his way up to the roof and manages to beat the Malignos is a F2F roll, Pistol vs Shotgun, killing it. He also manages to take out a Taigha and Ikadron, before dropping Prone to avoid any retaliation on the Shasvastii turn.

Things are looking dire for the Shasvatii already, with only 1 Order in Group 1 and 4 Orders in Group 2, but a brief glimmer of hope presents itself when the Speculo Killer passes its Regeneration roll and returns to the fray. It proceeds to gun down Perseus, but dies for good in the exchange. Needing more orders, the Noctifer Spitfire reveals itself and shoots at the MBH that killed the two Shrouded, then it takes up a position to defend against Raoul. The last remaining Taigha uses all the orders in its pool to engage the downed MBH and score Extreme Prejudice.

Raoul continues his rampage, setting the Noctifer Spitfire to Dogged, and positioning to do more the next turn. The Tunguskan leader, their Kriza Boracs, first shoots the last Taigha off the table, triggering the Noctifer Missile Launcher to jump into action. The Noctifer manages to crit it’s shot and puts the Kriza into Unconscious, but unfortunately the Nomad Paramedic isn’t far away, and it revives their downed leader. The Kriza finishes off the Noctifer Missile Launcher, and the Nomads end their turn.

With only 70 points left on the table, the Shasvatii are in Retreat. I spend Command Tokens to cancel retreat on all my remaining models and try to push into my closest zone, but unfortunately they don’t quite reach due to only having three orders to spend and being on top of buildings. The Ace up my sleeve though, was a second Malignos, this time a Killer Hacker, who reveals in the center zone, and with his single order scores HVT: Espionage and Secure HVT as the game ends.

Shasvastii 5 OP (Center Zone [2], 3 Classifieds [3])

Tunguska 2 OP (Close Zone [1], 1 Classified [1])

Apologies for the lack of pictures. Things got off to an exceptionally bloody start, and I was too caught up in the carnage to take photos. This was possibly one of the quickest games of Infinity I ever played, and would’ve been an absolutely crushing victory for my opponent if he had realized how few models I had left by Turn 2. After his very successful Turn 1, I knew my only chance was to get the cheeky Retreat win, so I purposefully revealed by Noctifers with the hopes they would die and happily went Dogged when I could, to ensure it would tip me over the edge and into Retreat.

***
When the fighting finally died down, all eight of the Shasvastii who composed the strike team lay dead in the dirt. Even the Speculo Killer who had so expertly infiltrated the Tunguskan’s ranks wasn’t spared. But as each of the eight fell to the fusillade of their human opponents, they did so with the absolute certainty that their deaths were necessary for advancing the Continuum’s mission on Durgama.

The human revelled in their victory. They celebrated in their raucous way with toasts and boasts, and cheers and jeers. They were so certain of their victory, so contemptuous of the alien menace which they had soundly defeated, that they failed to notice that one of the O-12 scientists in their charge was no longer part of their party. They were so sure of themselves, that they didn’t realize until the next day that their personal effects had been rifled through and any portable data storage devices stolen. It wasn’t until they attempted to report the thefts, that they realized every computer terminal in their wing of the facility was corrupted beyond recovery.

Eight Shasvasstii marched to the Zebu Investigation Center to die. One by one they fell on the battlefield, selling their lives willingly, dying with the clarity of purpose that comes only to those whose fate was long ago sealed.

Eight Shasvastii marched to the Zebu Investigation Center to die.

The ninth Shasvastii’s left with their prize in hand.
***