Durgama Takeover

Pre-Battle
I came back for another game with Whyarecarrots. Last time I got annihilated but this time I decided to try out some fireteams. I switched to Haqq at the start of N4 and I’d only tried Vanilla so far. But my plan was always to move to the Ramah Taskforce. I’ve played Infinity since the start of N3 but never really committed to fireteams.
I’d had Khawarij fireteams in mind but found there was better value in other places. A tasty 5 Ghulam core fronted by the Zhayedan with HMG and a Haris of 2 Mukhtars and a Namurr rounded out my experiment. To be honest my choices were partly decided by the models I had. I don’t want to proxy too much. I used a couple of Aleph troops for the Mukhtars and a Yu Jing HI when I realised the Al Fasid was the wrong silhouette for a Janissary.
The mission required us to dominate the most quadrants each round. Each quadrant had a console. One objective point was available for hacking a console with up to three available if you could hack more. Scoring was rounded out with one classified.

Deployment
My opponent won the WIP roll and chose to go second. I let him deploy first. Since my list was mainly fireteam members I got through my deployment faster than normal. I kept back a Tuareg sniper but left a marker state opposing his other sniper. I wanted him to know there was something there.
My fear with running Ramah was that while they could clearly punch hard, they didn’t look very resilient. I needed to keep my fireteams largely intact to the second round so needed a few distractions. A HI with HMG, Warcor, Fanous Remote and the Tuareg in marker state were there to slow him down with Carmen and Batard lurking and ready to strike.

The Game
In my last game against Tohaa I confessed I didn’t know the unit names and my knowledge hasn’t improved since then.
I went first and wanted to make a quick run for the consoles. I thought I could get a couple first round if I could put the Tohaa sniper down. That thing was a huge pain last game. The difficulty was my opponent stripped two orders from my main order group.
My 5 man core looked well placed to deal it a blow but I feared I was a little over my good range. I spent a few orders to find a better spot and take some shots. I also revealed the Tuareg early as well. I did enough to scare it prone. That left the way open for Leila Sharif to claim the first console. Job done and I was in a quadrant now but lacking orders. Unable to push the Haris for the other console I moved my HI to a spot where it could get some shots at anyone approaching my core.
Tohaa began by killing my Warcor. They followed up with some orders trying to take out my sniper and so began a turn-spanning exchange where the two kept firing at each other and making armour saves. A few orders to no great purpose and my opponent tried a new tactic of running a controller with some kind of beast towards my fireteam. Fearing they’d get templated I took every ARO I could and killed the controller but not without losing the Zhayedan HMG. Tohaa revealed a Clipsos in hidden deployment and grabbed a console on their side of the table. They finished by moving some units to cover their home zones.
First round scoring and I realised I’d made a bad mistake. My Jannisary hadn’t moved far enough out of my deployment zone. I lost the first round rather tamely.
Second round and I realised I could achieve my classified by making a WIP -3 roll with my opponent’s HVT in ZoC. Food and drink to Leila and this classified gave a bonus point. Lacking the core’s HMG I set my sniper to work and it thankfully felled it’s rival. I put my other fireteam to work after Carmen put down some smoke and they hacked a second console.
Tohaa pushed back and took advantage of the terrible position I’d left Leila in. Their spearhead of another Triad beat Leila’s ARO, striking with two hits. Out of cover Leila saved both! Great let’s fail guts and move back. Oh wait she’s religious, not to worry her WIP is great. Oh, she’s staying. She was promptly slaughtered for her religious zeal. Back on to Tohaa’s favourite tactic, push down the centre to try and kill my core fireteam. This was tense. A Tohaa with synced Chaksa kept moving and making saves despite all my shots. They’re really durable! I killed the Chaksa but not it’s controller. My fireteam made a dodge to get out the way of a template but it felt very close.
End of turn was even on zones controlled.
Back to me and I tried to shoot the controller from long range. No good so I decided to risk the fireteam taking a shot at close range after checking if it had a template. Thankfully no and the fireteam doctor did the business. We were running short of time so I just went for it and ran my Haris into Tohaa’s end of the table after clearing out a covering unit with height. I made a bad choice of weapon when the Clipsos tried to forward observe my Namurr. I was close enough to get the +6 shotgun bonus but used the spitfire and missed. The Clipsos forward observed me, scoring a classified and later proceeded to kill the Namurr and a Mukhtar. Try as I might I couldn’t hit him and clear a path to another console.
The final round finished with no zones dominated. We both scored our classifieds and two consoles each. Tohaa’s domination of the zones in the first round, when I didn’t move my Janissary far enough out, was enough to win.
This was a fun game with a prodigious number of armour saves from both sides. It may as well have been the Invincible Army twice. Nothing died in great numbers till the end. I made some blunders forgetting rules for my fireteams so hopefully this will help me remember. Now, time to order some more Ramah units …