Durgama Takeover

***

Mentor Naakzir had an impeccable view of the approaching PanOceanian forces thanks to the quartet of Aerodrons hovering silently, far above the field. The tiny semi-conscious remotes relayed their multi-spectrum visual feed directly into Naakzir’s Comlog, which was integrated with Shasvastii genetech to allow him to process what would be an otherwise overwhelming quantity of information.

From his hidden vantage point, simultaneously at ground-level and far above, facing every cardinal direction at once, Naakzir observed the movements of the human soldiers in exacting detail, and after some minutes of careful calculations and ground assessment, he relayed the ideal interception route to his subordinates, identifying the positions from which they’d spring their ambush.

The PanOceanians were drawn from the Raveneye orbital station’s bow section to this inhospitable, high-altitude battleground in pursuit of the Morat invaders who had been repelled from the station. Not content merely to throw the invaders back from their proverbial walls, a PanO strike team had taken to the field, intent on riding down the Morats before they could regroup and attack again. While Naakzir held no love for the boorish species, he understood the importance of the Morat’s tenacity in a conflict such as this, and he gladly took to the field with his Shasvastii kin to cover their retreat.

As the humans neared striking distance, Naakzir recalled his Aerodrons to his position. They would be more distraction than help once combat began, and would risk giving away their position once the human’s Quatronic specialists were in range. He relayed his final instructions to his subordinates, confident that they would carry out their orders impeccably once the fighting began.

He heard the opening volley of one of his Q-Drones engaging the enemy forces at extreme range, and the satisfyingly panicked chatter over the enemy’s commsnet as his electronic warfare specialists brought the eavesdropping protocols online.

Naakzir readied his shotgun and prepared for the fight to begin in earnest.
***

PanO wins the Lt Roll and chooses to go first. Shasvastii choose to deploy second.

Varg with K1 Marksman Rifle attempts to shoot the Shasvastii’s leftmost Q-Drone, but misjudged the range slightly and gets shot from its bad range-band, fortunately surviving thanks to its cover. Karhu + Motorized Duo Fireteam advance and get in a gunfight with the Shasvastii’s rightmost Q-Drone, but neither side falls. The Karhu then climbs up the building in front of it and engages the Shasvastii’s rightmost Q-Drone again. This time though, the Karhu’s luck doesn’t hold and it goes down to the Q-Drone’s Total Reaction HMG.

Next, the PanO Uberhacker advances under cover of camo until it reaches one of the consoles, revealing to be a Zulu-Cobra Killer Hacker and successfully hacking the console and identifying the Rouge AI in the Shasvastii’s rightmost server. It then retreats back to safety behind a nearby vendor stall.

The Taigha use their Impetuous moves to rush towards the PanO lines. Shrouded Killer Hack advances in camo towards the other console and reveals PanO’s Rouge AI in their central server.

One of the Q-Drones exchanges fire with the Varg, who survives the attack but drops prone so as not to receive another. The other Q-Drones then fights the Warcor, knocking it unconscious with a burst of fire. With fewer obstacles between it and the PanO lines, the leftmost Taigha begins advancing, but gets shot down by the Motorized Bounty Hunter. The rightmost Q-Drone starts picking a fight with the Knight of Montessa, who over two ARO’s retreats from the Q-Drone’s assault, taking a Wound before it gets out of LOS.

This clears the way for the remaining Taigha to advance and engage the Motorized Bounty Hunter.

The Zulu-Cobra re-enters camo and advances towards the leftmost Q-Drone before revealing and taking it out of action with a surprise shot. This triggers a nearby Caliban to break camouflage and dodge to be able to engage her with his Boarding Shotgun. The Varg takes issue with this and uses its Super-Jump to engage the Caliban, who successfully dodges the attack to duck back to where the Varg can no longer see it. PanO then sends their camouflaged Beast Hunter to spray the Caliban with its Heavy Flamethrower, and the sneaky Shasvastii finally fails its dodge and goes down.

Now safe from the Caliban, the Zulu-Cobra continues advancing and scores Net Undermine.

PanO spends the last few orders advancing Joan and some other models up the field, where she uses her Advanced Command to coordinate Suppressive Fire on a few models.

Wanting to open strong, the Shasvastii begin advancing with their Uberhacker until it’s in range of the Rouge AI server. It then reveals itself to be a second Shrouded Killer Hacker, and destroys the Rouge AI with a single order of Data Erasure.

The Taigha decides its done hanging out with the Motorized Bounty Hunter and promptly claws it to pieces, before turning its eyes to the supressing Monstrucker. It sells its life doing so, but manages to get into chain-Colt range and knock the engineer unconscious. The non-Uberhacker Shrouded KHD spends some orders mining the approach to their servers. A second Caliban (Forward Observer this time) stealthily advances towards the building next to the Combine Army’s controlled console, and places D-Charges on it to score Sabotage. Then, all the revealed Shasvastii agents re-enter their camouflaged states with a coordinated order.

The Zulu-Cobra Uberhacker begins to move towards the Shasvastii servers, but is forced to halt when when it enters the Shasvastii repeater net and narrowly survives a Trinity from the Shrouded KHD. Using the Gravitational Advantage of the scenario, a Knight of Santiago walks on the board edge near the Shasvastii DZ and knocks the Shrouded KHD unconscious, shrugging off a mine in the process.

The Zulu-Cobra tries to advance again, but a third Caliban (Engineer) reveals to Pulzar her in the back at the same time an Ikadron tags her with a Flash Pulse; the lucky hacker survives the Pulzar hit, but becomes Stunned.

As part of a coordinated order with Joan, Beast Hunter, and Knight of Montessa, the Knight of Santiago picks a fight with the rightmost Q-Drone and Ikadron, getting stunned for its efforts and failing to kill either remote.

They try another coordinated order with Joan, Beast Hunter, and Montessa, but this time Joan takes an unopposed Pulzar to the back and suffers a Wound while the Q-Drone strips the last Wound from the Montessa Knight. Joan moves forward cautiously one more time before making a break for an empty server, shrugging off another Pulzar from the Caliban Engineer and triggering the Mentor Hacker to reveal itself and Oblivion her, which her BTS fails to overcome. Finally, the Beast Hunter makes a break for the same empty server, surviving a Pulzar and the Q-Drone’s incoming fire, but getting Stunned by the Ikadron’s Flash Pulse.

Destroy Enemy Rouge AI [3], Protect Friendly Rouge AI [2], Destroy more Servers [2], No Friendly Servers Destroyed [1], Activate Console [1], Score Classified [1]

Activate Console [1], Score Classified [1]

We decide not to play out Shasvastii Turn 3, because Shasvastii have already scored 10 points, and we’re quickly losing daylight (the downside to playing games on the patio in the beautiful summer weather). The Ikadron and Q-Drone on the Shasvastii right flank ended up being pivotal to this victory, neutralizing 161 points worth of PanO models in ARO and preventing PanO soldiers from reaching any of the Shasvastii servers. Up until that point though, the game could’ve gone either way, as PanO had tonnes of effective CC on the board, and their Uberhacker was still alive to attack the servers.

***
The humans had been defeated. They had deployed expecting a quick sweep and destroy operation against Morat oposition, but instead found a well-entrenched Shasvastii strike team had intercepted their advance. Now, those who survived lay down their arms in surrender, or fled into the sparse forests of the mountain to be chased down by Taigha packs before night fell.

While their main mission of covering the retreat of the beleaguered Morat forces from the Raveneye boarding action was successful, the Shasvastii had scored a second victory. During the conflict, a Shrouded cyber-infiltrator, had managed to undermine the security measures of the human’s landing craft, and it now recognized Naakzir and his team as friendly PanOceanian forces.

Naakzir had relayed this information to his commanders, but didn’t bother waiting for a response prior to loading his strike team onto the shuttle.

The Morat’s had failed to take and hold Raveneye with blunt force and application of manpower.

Perhaps a subtle hand with a hidden knife would succeed instead.
***