Durgama Takeover

My NCA forces deployed to reinforce the area around Cameliard. While they were on patrol, the Hexahedron contacted me with urgent intel. They intercepted encrypted messages that showed that Aleph was deploying a small strike team to steal the Artifact. Thanks to this intel, my forces were able to hide and observe the enemy deployment before taking up their own defensive positions.

NCA Wins the Lt roll, and I choose deployment. Aleph chooses to go second.

Aleph Deployment:
Two Myrmidons deployed centrally, one a bit more to the right. On the left flank, a Netrod, Thamyris, and a Dakini HMG waited in the forest. A duo of Acmon and an ABH hid nearby. Another ABH Duo led by Shakti hid in the back right corner. Both ABHs rolled up Light Flamethrowers.

NCA Deployment:
My Bolt fireteam took up a defensive position on my rightmost flank with my Bolt Sniper, watching some key firelanes to pin the enemy Myrmidons and keep Shakti at a distance.
My Lieutenant Auxilia holed up in the same building, her auxbot watching the rightmost table edge.
The Fusilier Haris led by a Black Friar HRL set up on my leftmost flank to potentially make a move for the large building and set up a horizontal ARO. CSU rolls up Climbing Plus.
Uma and Aida set up to take The Armory. Aida rolled up an Adhesive Launcher +1B

Aleph Reserve:
Surprising nobody, The Proxies made their appearance. Mk5 FO sets up on the right side of the table behind some buildings. Mk4 HRL sets up on the central building of my opponent’s side of the table with the goal of watching the interior of the room once the doors open. Mk1 Doctor deployed in a central position on the ground-level, with her Yudbot prone up top to potentially heal the HRL.
NCA Reserve:
My Locust attempted an aggressive infiltration deployment, with the goal of causing absolute mayhem with WildParrots in the Aleph DZ. Alas, the infiltration roll failed and he was forced to deploy on my left-most table edge, which was thankfully still wide open with no AROs.

NCA -
Even though my Locust failed its infiltration roll, the entire left flank was wide open. Aida and Uma were both safely in the shadow of The Armory. I spent three Command Tokens moving the Locust, Aida, and Uma downfield. All three placed deployables during this movement. I was nervous about blitzing through so many Command Tokens so early, but I rationalized that I needed to make a big opening if I hoped to take advantage of all of my defensive deployable weapons.
Uma successfully opened The Armory, and moved around the right side of the structure and placed an E/M Mine, staying out of sight of the Mk4 HRL. Aida managed to slip past his watchful gaze via a cautious movement to get inside the room. Once inside, she went up to the leftmost Panoply and found a Multi-sniper Rifle. Useful, but maybe not so much in this mission. She backed up to place herself behind partial cover in the center of the room, laying one more Viral Mine as she went. She ended the turn in Suppressive fire, which was extremely important.

The Locust SMG had made his way nearly to the Aleph Deployment Zone. He placed a WildParrot in a position that would go off on Thamyris, should he activate. Signaling that the coast was clear, he radioed for the Fusilier Haris to advance.
The Fusilier Haris moved up the same left flank and ended up in a position that allowed the Black Friar HRL to see a long horizontal firelane, further pinning the enemy Myrmidons. With the Haris in position, and my order pool nearly depleted, my Locust decided to take some long-range potshots at Thamyris, hoping to shock him off the table and deal some small amount of damage to my opponent. Thankfully, this succeeded, and Thamyris was killed.

Aleph -
Since Aleph had essentially null-deployed, they had nearly their entire order pool at their disposal going into turn 1. I had also overextended my Fusilier Haris. A camo marker that was hiding in a nearby building moved out to engage my Locust and the Haris. To my horror, I had completely misread the identity of this Camo marker! I thought it was likely a Naga, but it turned out to be a Beasthunter. It leapt out of the building and unleashed its flamethrower on my Locust, the Black Friar, and the CSU. I probably should’ve broken my Haris and fired with the CSU, considering his PH was so low. I opted to dodge with everyone, with the hope that my Locust would be able to dodge into B2B and stop the next flamethrower from going off. Unfortunately, the Black Friar failed his dodge and burned to death instantly. The CSU passed his dodge, and the Locust failed, but passed his armor save. Since the Locust failed his dodge, we had to brace for a second round of flames. The CSU accepted his fate this time and fired his Breaker Combi, but unfortunately missed as he burned to death. The Locust thankfully passed his dodge this time and launched himself at the Beasthunter.

With the Locust locked in CC, Acmon and his ABH sprung into action. They maneuvered towards the room, with Acmon clearing a viral mine by dodging it. The ABH ran into the room and unleashed a torrent of flames upon Aida. Aida bravely suppressed through the onslaught and PASSED her armor save! Thanks to Courage, she held the line as the ABH died in a hail of bullets.

With the straight-forward approach not working as well as they hoped, Aleph maneuvered their Danavas into a position that could see into the Armory and successfully fired a Pitcher inside. Then they Targeted Aida to counteract the effect of her mimetism. Satisfied with this, Acmon made his approach into the room. The first volley resulted in no injuries. Acmon then moved into the room, foregoing his cover. Acmon managed to win this F2F, but Aida held her ground and passed her armor save! He fired one more time now that he had found cover in the room. Uma attempted to dodge into the room herself in order to assist Aida and counteract Acmon’s higher points value, but unfortunately failed on a few opportunities.
At the end of the turn, Acmon and Aida were in a stalemate, and unfortunately for my NCA forces, Acmon’s points outweighed Aida’s. Aleph Scores 2pts.
Finally, the Beasthunter decides to coin-flip a CC match with the Locust. Unfortunately, the Beasthunter rolls slightly higher and the Locust dies.

NCA -
With only one Command token remaining, and the Haris in Group 2 containing only one surviving Fusilier Paramedic, his goal was clear. This Beasthunter could not be allowed to slip away, because it could absolutely ruin our plans later in the game by flaming the room. The Fusilier rushed forward to take on the Beasthunter, unfortunately needing to come into flamethrower range to get LoS. The Fusilier burned to death, but took the Beasthunter with him.

The second thorn in my side was Acmon. He had multiple wounds and outnumbered Aida in points, so he absolutely had to go. I couldn’t risk moving Uma in to assist, because she would certainly be Targeted by the repeater inside The Armory. Since Aida was already targeted, it was all up to her. She had a lengthy shootout with Acmon. After multiple orders, Aida was able to successfully take him down. With the room to herself once more, she did some tidying up, clearing out the Repeater and moving to the second Panoply to rummage for some more gear. She managed to roll up the holy grail for this mission. +4 ARM! Suddenly her Suppressive entrenchment became even more reinforced. She moved back to the cover in the center of the room and settled back into suppressive fire.
My final actions were a pretty serious blunder. I feared being outnumbered in the room for a second time, so I foolishly moved Uma into the doorway behind Aida, placing another E/M mine to reinforce their position. The biggest issue with this plan was that both Uma, Aida, and the mine were now within blast radius and there was still a Posthuman HRL outside…

Aleph -
Seeing the mistake I made, the Posthuman HRL moved to take advantage. He traveled down the stairs to get LoS to both Uma and Aida. Aida suppressed and Uma attempted to dodge for her life. Things were looking fairly grim, but Uma CRIT on her dodge! She escaped to the safety of outside The Armory, as I began sweating once more now that Aida was still the only one holding down the fort. Aida’s suppression unfortunately bounced off of the Proxy’s heavy armor.

Once more, my opponent opted for a sneakier approach. Even though the Myrmidons were relatively pinned by my Bolt sniper, there were some very particular ways to move and get past her. A series of careful movements, Cautious Movements, and smoke, a lone Myrmidon made it to the threshold of The Armory. The Myrmidon moved inside and fired his Chain Rifle at Aida! Aida suppressed, but the Mimetism(-6) caused her shots to go wide. Aida tanked ANOTHER armor save. The Myrmidon then opted to throw smoke in order to stop the onslaught of shots coming his way. Once smoke was out, he moved into CC with Aida, hoping to silence the smuggler for the last time. Once our CC skills were tallied up, it turned out it was a relatively close roll. Another coin flip for us both. To my excitement, Aida WON the CC fight and blasted the Myrmidon with her Viral Pistol, the shot melting straight through his BTS and sending him straight home to Aleph.

A Liberto ran towards the room, hoping to clear some mines and take out Uma. My Warcor successfully discovered him. Uma managed to dodge, and the Liberto was gunned down by the Bolt Sniper.

With that plan coming to a bitter end, the Posthuman HRL lashed out at the Bolt Sniper, hoping to clear the watchful ARO to clear the way for the rest of the Aleph forces to make their final push on the last turn. My heart sank when my Bolt Sniper, needing 19s to hit, rolled two 3s. That was until I saw my opponent’s roll. My heart leapt into my throat when I realized my opponent rolled two misses! Both 18s! So we had a double double roll. The Posthuman failed two armor saves and collapsed.

NCA -
With the Posthuman HRL finally taken care of, it was time to pack the room. The Bolts, who had waited so dutifully, leapt into action. Since the Bolt Sniper had such a great line of sight, I opted to leave her behind to keep a watchful eye. The other Bolts moved up, tossing Drop Bears in the doorways of The Armory, ensuring that the enemy would have to remove them or set them off first before potentially move-moving into the room.
There was still one major threat, the second Myrmidon. I was also partially wary of the Danavas, because White Noise could block my Bolt Sniper from being used effectively. A mine left from the Liberto was in the way, so my brave Bolt Hacker decided to take on two birds with one stone. He stepped into ZoC of the Danavas and LoS of the mine. He figured if he got lucky and managed to isolate the Danavas, we’d be in a really great spot. Unfortunately for him, he ended up getting immobilized and sent unconscious via the mine.
Now that the mine was cleared, I re-formed the fireteam and sent the Bolt Spitfire after the final Myrmidon. Unfortunately, I misjudged the distance of the chain rifle and the Bolt Spitfire went down, but not before taking the Myrmidon with him. Job done. My final actions were spent on the two remaining Bolts in the room. The Bolt Paramedic managed to successfully shoot and revive BOTH Bolts that were knocked unconscious outside. The Drop Bear Bolt went into Suppressive to reinforce Aida’s position.

Aleph -
Reeling, Aleph was quickly running out of options. Shakti made one final push, attempting to take on the Bolt Spitfire and the Bolt BSG who were standing in the open. [Note: I actually made a mistake here where I forgot my Bolt BSG was immobilized, but it didn’t end up changing the outcome.] The Bolt Spitfire managed to fend off Shakti’s first attack, the BSG fell unconscious. My warcor managed to CRIT Shakti with her flash-pulse, completely halting her advance. With the one last ace blinded, the Proxy Mk5 moved to take out the Bolt Spitfire and clear a way for the Proxy Mk1 to move towards the room in a desperate attempt to clear it with a nanopulser. The Bolt Spitfire died, but there was still a Drop Bear in the way. The Proxy Mk1 ran up and successfully dodged the Drop Bear, but was blasted to pieces by a final decisive volley from Aida Swanson.

As the dust settled, NCA had successfully defended The Armory! It was a hard-fought game. My opponent is very talented, and at any point things could’ve gone south fast. I need to make a note to give Aida a raise, because she absolutely owned this mission. It is so rare that I’ve had a single unit hold the line as hard as she did, and PanOceania is indebted to her efforts on this battlefield today.