Durgama Takeover

LT Sera Arzumanyan took in status reports as the Ariadnans retreated. She activated her squad comms "We have wounded, Kaplan Tactical Services, have your doctor patch everyone up. Double time, we're moving into the vault."

As the squad approached the vault, alarms sounded and a digital voice blared "CONTAINMENT BREACH. Please proceed to a safe area. CONTAINMENT BREACH. Please proceed to a safe area."

Calming blue lights lit up on four antennae like structures and over each door to a large room in the center of the area.

As Arzumanyan started ordering troops to the designated areas, PanOceanian soldiers started filing into the room.

"Find cover!" Arzumanyan ordered. "We need to push to that safe room! Move move move!"

This was rough. I think I lost sight of the mission and got distracted removing threats which I could have avoided with cautious moves.

I won the initiative and picked deploy second, thinking moving second would be beneficial for me.

I put selective covering fire to limit approaches to the central room, but Liquidtri wasted no time in removing my defenses. His Teutons moved up and fired panzerfausts one by one to remove my Azra'il and a few other soft targets. In our post game talk I told him I don't think that was really optimal and he would've had better numbers with the Tikbalang for all of those shots, but it worked for him.

I did put a wound on the Tikbalang with my KTS Sniper, but he took it out on his next order.

He positioned so I couldn't move anyone up without needing to engage with multiple targets in superior range bands. It was bad.

I should have cautious moved up the right side which he didn't have covered as well, but instead I just bashed my head against the wall of his AROs for two turns.

By the end everyone was still in the biotechvore zone and I was down to just my Azra'il which I had got back up with a medikit. There was no way for me to affect the scoring, so I conceded. In retrospect I may have been able to deny two points if I had managed to kill Joan with the two orders I had on the Azra'il, but for campaign purposes it would have stayed a PanO win.

I did manage to put some hurt back, Liquidtri was under half his points in the end with a pretty low model count, but he had superior tactical positioning the entire game.

Above: deployment shots.

I still think my deployment was solid, and I covered what I needed to. I would have kept the KTS sniper on the ground, but there wasn't a good vantage point. Liquidtri used his good dodges really effectively. This game is the first time it really sunk in how powerful Dodge movement occurring during the effects step is.

Above: Teutons moving forward. they took up position around the blue barrier at the center of the photo where they were easily able to slice the pie and take out Leila and my Azra'il and completely cover any ability for my Ghilman or the Hawwa I failed to deploy to move up.

Above is I believe the end of round 1, or close to that state. I still have an army and have started to advance the KTS, but my LT and NCO are both locked down. I dropped some Yuan Yuans from group 2 in position to try to clear the room on my next turn.

Above is close to the final game state. I doctored up the Azra'il and the doctor went down to the biotechvore zone. There was nothing I saw I could do so I conceded. Looking at the table again, I think I could have at least attempted to shoot Joan out of the center to deny 2 points.

A Deva Functionary examined the combat area from a hidden vantage point. It spoke quietly into a subcutaneous microphone. "I count 14 casualties. One prisoner. PanO troops are forming a perimeter. No sign of ALEPH, yet."

A pause, and the implanted comms crackled to life "Copy. Negotiate with them, but try to not initiate conflict. Convince them ALEPH should handle investigation and their own involvement will be forgiven."

"Inshallah." The Functionary whispered. It strolled toward the PanOceanian soldiers. The Haqqislam-engineered mine it left behind beeped softly before fading into the background.