Durgama Takeover

The spires of the Cameliard Monetary towering over the jungle canopy In the distance was a reassuring sight for the devout knights of the Fist of St Peter, a task force assembled entirely of volunteers for the purpose of holding Concilium Prima against the hated forces of the Combined Army.

Whilst the force was a mix of heroes, veterans and fresh recruits, there wasn't a single one among them without the fervour needed to sacrifice their lives in service of their God and of mankind. This was lucky, as a sacrifice would be exactly what was needed.

Advancing forward through the thick jungle in a single line, making sure that nothing slipped by in their relentless push for the monastary, the brutish and savage Morat aggression force edged closer and closer to the outer guard posts defending the climb up through the overgrown forest to the front gates of their target. They cared not for the gods of man, but only where the EI sends them to kill. It wasn't all bad though, killing was what they enjoyed.

At the edge of the jungle, approaching the clearing holding the first guard post, the line stopped. Their leader, a particularly grizzled Suryat, hefted his HMG and bellowed a roar, this was the signal his force needed to charge forward. The time for blood was now.

Even before the Morat leader let out his battle cry, the leader of the Military Orders, Father Officer Gabrielle DeFersen, assessed the battlefield and manoeuvred his forces to take the more advantageous ground, looking at the Morats line formation and deploying his forces in order to best defend against it, most importantly, neutralising the advantage of the heavy weapons carried by the suryats and sogurats in the enemy force.

They barely had time to get into place before the advanced forces of the Morats began to charge their positions. As the charge began, Defersen requested communications jamming from the Raveneye facility overhead to reduce the effectiveness of the Morat leaders commands during the initial strike. With all the preparations they could make done, it was time for the Fist of St Peter to weather the storm.

First, Four Ghakis and three Krakot Renegades hurtled across the battlefield, straight past the guard post and towards the waiting knights. A Ghaki moved up along a ruined vehicle and attempted to hurl itself around the front to get an open line to charge into the fray but stumbled and remained in cover.

The brave defenders of the Military Orders braced themselves for the suicidal charge of Morat warbands, but it didn't come. Instead there was silence, before a paid of Sogurats slid up into a firing position and hurtled a deadly fulisade of fire at Gabriel, an armour piercing HMG round glancing his ribs as he dove into cover, wounding him. The Sogurats surged forward, using their momentum to advance up the now unguarded track towards the Military Orders DZ. On the way, they launched another volley of fire, this time at a Teutonic knight who hit the lead sogurat with his panzerfaust, the hit managing to wound the morat. He fired again, knocking the Teutonic knight unconcious as two HMG rounds hammered home. The kept rushing forward. They were on a mission, sent to take out the heavy armour support spotted in the AO. They flung around the corner, the lead sogurat dodging the Seraphs nanopulsers, the rear one wasn't fast enough but it's biotechnical shield flared as it caught the brunt of the blast. Without missing a beat they tag teamed the Seraph in close combat. The mighty tag swinging its sword in a brutal arc as one Sogurat caught it with his own wickedly curved blade, the supporting Suryat drove its blade home with a critical strike finding the weak point in the seraphs armour. The connection to its pilot broken, the tag slumped down into a useless hunk of metal, like a puppet who's strings had been cut. As the last of its lights went out, the knights of the Military Orders began their counter attack.

A quick thinking Crozier Paramedic surged forward to rescue the Teutonic knight that had just been taken out by the Sogurats on their charge into the crusader lines. Despite the giant wound cavities of the armour piercing HMG rounds that ripped through his body, fuelled by a mixture of fury and experimental medical stimulants deployed for this mission, the Teutonic knight rallied his fireteam before roaring at them to follow me.

He charged forward to the corner of the nearest structure to begin engaging the deadly overwatch of the Suryat team on the high ground in the Morat DZ. The knight and the suryat with the Heavy Rocket Launcher trade bursts several times, the plentiful ammo scattered around the area allowing him to rain continual punishment on the Morat, the Teuton was the first to be hit, the fire of the rocket rolling over his armour, the heat passed and a well placed panzerfaust sent the Suryat to meet his maker. Not done, his rage still not sated, the Teuton moved up to fire at the Suryat holding a HMG, this time a ghaki saw the knight and took advantage of the action to dodge into contact with Brother konstantinos who was holding the right flank. The Teuton hit the Suryat with a panzerfaust, knocking it unconcious.

Noticing konstaninos was in danger, the Teuton charged forward, his mastery over the jungle terrain giving him unnatural speed as he approached the ghaki, smiting it down with his sword, ending it rightly, before it was able to explode. The furious knight was now standing in the open with little regard for safety. His fireteam tried to get his attention, but it was too late.

A Ghaki, seeing the wounded Teuton standing in the open let's out a shriek and charges at him, the knight hears him coming and swings his sword, decapitating the alien beast, who falls bladed arms extended and runs the knight through as it dies, they both slump to the ground, the ghaki is killed, the knight unconcious once more.

A second ghaki also targeting the Teuton changed course last second and collided with Konstantinos. The Indigo agent impaled the ghaki on his sword but before it died, it's alien mouth full of several rows of serated teeth clamped down on his neck. Thankfully the alien failed to explode but the special ops soldier was bleeding out on the ground.

The vanguard not panicked by watching the two mighty suryats fall to panzerfaust fife sprung into action and fired his medkit at the fallen HMG trooper. The Morat sat bolt upright, stimulants rushing through his system. Thoroughly rebuked, the morat leader decides to lay low and instruct the Sogurats to make the most of their flanking position.

It is a complex task to extract the processing unit from a damaged Seraph, it took two attempts for the lead sogurat to manage the task, he did not know why it was important, only he had Orders to retrieve its computational power to add to that of the EI. Without a word, the Sogurat leader moved forward towards the exposed flank of the knights. With a gesture, he sent the unwounded sogurat to engage a Teutonic knight, the first exchange wounding the knight, the second saw a glancing panzerfaust hit but fail to draw blood on the heavily armoured Morat. Third times the charm as a single well placed bullet took the Teutons will to fight. The Sogurats advanced, the electronic warfare alarms roared to life on the lead morat, but DeFersen failed to successfully overpower the programing of the Sogurat's suitm. They moved up a staircase to fire into the back of a santago knight who managed to avoid the volley. The Sogurat bellowed in frustration as his suit powered down, immobilised by the meddling of DeFersen.

Gabriel sprung into action, he had to stop the Tempest regiment from routing the Military Orders defence. He sprinted towards the staircase, successfully immobilising the second sogurat as he ran. The first Morat angrily fumbled with his suit but was unable to reactivate it. Defersen lunged for the rear Sogurat, running it through with his sword, it struck a vital organ, his suit frozen and powerless to resist, the Morat died in agony.

As his friend died, the lead sogurat managed to reset his suit and spun triumphantly aiming his heavy pistol at Defersen. The Father Officer ducked to the right as he ran up the stairs at the Morat, his spitfire blazing and knocking off the Sogurats aim, although the rounds from the spitfire bounced harmlessly off of his armour. It didn't matter though, it gave Defersen the opening he needed to engage the giant. The Knights blade glanced off of the shoulder of the heavy infantry.

The remaining warbands, smelling the blood in the air, charged forward. A particularly bold Krakot surged forward, dodging HMG fire from a Hospitalier knight to engulf the wounded Teuton and Hospitalier knight in a roiling hot stream of monofilament chains, killing both of them. Sprinting forwards, dodging more HMG fire as he went, he fired sideways at the Crozier Paramedic who wasn't quick enough and was dematerialised by the Morats chain rifle. It kept coming, roaring and charging the hospitalier knight who's HMG ran dry with a click as it charged in, he barely had time to draw his sword before he was disembowelled by the Krakot. The morat was elated, but quickly humbled when the knight cleaved him in two with his final breath.

Meanwhile the Sogurat and Defersen were engaged in a titanic dual, the giant Morat trying to use his superior strength to bash the template into submission. It didn't work however, the martial prowess of the veteran knight winning out in the end. The suryat swung a brutal vertical slice that the knight stepped to the side off and drew his sword along the back of the Sogurats leg, only the immense thickness of the Morat armour stopping this from being a lethal blow to the tendons in the Morat's leg. The Sogurat swung a desperate slash horizontally across Defersens chest, connecting, punching in the knights chest plate but somehow not managing to puncture through. The Sogurat drew back to bring his blade down in a finishing blow on the winded knight, but DeFerson stepped forward with a lunge and drove his glowing sword through the neck of the Morat towering over him. The Sogurat slumped to its knees before falling to the ground. DeFersen had no time to rest as a Ghaki sculking around the corner climbed over a building and lunged at him, but he stepped back and swung a wild horizontal cut, sending the aliens head tumbling into the jungle.

DeFersen knew he needed to get to the guard post, he had to use the beacon inside to warn the other guard houses of the assault. He turn to run down the stairs but stopped as a single HMG round ripped through his chest. He fell to one knee, before himself becoming unconcious and falling on top of the lumbering giant he had just slain.

Seeing his commander fall, the santiago knight sprinted forward, determined to get revenge. The morat leader, sneering at having dropped the templar was too slow to react, he fired at the santiago knight but was taken down by a fulisade of combirifle fire. As he fell, the battle was over.

Their morale broken, the Morats retreated to begin regrouping, having lost all of their heavy weapons, they needed to resupply before continuing the assault. As they fled, a krakot managed to get the computing core of the fallen Seraph. The attack had failed, but the Morats had secured a secondary objective given to them by the cruel and ruthless EI.

The santiago knight dragged the unconcious DeFersen back to friendly lines and raised the alarm of the Morat attack. Within minutes fresh troops were on hand rendering assistance to the unconcious knights and readying new defences.

So much death for no real victory. The guardpost hadn't been lost, but the sacrifice made to hold it had been too much.

It was little consolation but on the bright side, the new experimental combat stims being rolled out on Concillum Prima were a success, which is lucky, as before this war is ended, I'm sure we will need alot more of them.

The game was a 1:1 Draw with both players failing to enter the armoury and only securing their classified objectives.

Gabriel DeFersen, Father-Officer, Day 1, Wounded, Cameliard Monastery
Hanz Bedrick, Teuton Knight, Day 1, KIA, Cameliard Monastery
Robert Diedrich, Teuton Knight, Day 1, KIA, Cameliard Monastery
Sean O'Haggerty, Teuton Knight, Day 1, KIA, Cameliard Monastery
Brother Konstantinos, Indigo Operative, Day 1, MIA, Cameliard Monastery
Kara Humbrol, Crozier Paramedic, Day 1, KIA, Cameliard Monastery
Jamie Kopper, Hospitalier Knight, Day 1, KIA, Cameliard Monastery