Durgama Takeover

PanOceania wins the Lt roll. Even though my troops are starved for orders to begin with, I can’t risk the Nomads getting the chance to alpha strike my Jotum. If that giant falls, we’re done for. I choose to go first, and my opponent chooses a deployment with the intent of null-deploying.

PanO Deployment:
Since I’m engaging first, I wanted to slightly mask my information. Because my list has so few orders, I’m trying to bluff that I have a lot of hidden deployment. To help with this, I chose to spend a command token to hold back both my Jotum and my Machinist as my reserves. If the Machinist shows up, it gives away that I have a TAG immediately. The meager remainder of my list sets up fairly conservatively. My Zulu Cobra deploys in the center of the board. I want him to be ready to move in whichever direction I need to send him. The Auxilia dutifully watch the sides of my deployment zone. When engaging in a Firefight with Nomads, there’s no telling who is going to drop in behind you. Similarly, my Fugazi deployed far back in my DZ, near the table edge. I need their orders more than their defense right now.

Nomads Deployment:
Seeing how few models stood on the table across from him, my opponent decided to go along with his plan to null deploy. His hope is that I won’t have enough orders to get anything done or kill anything. At the same time, he’s also concerned about AD troops, considering the Designated Landing Area. He deploys a Flash bot on each table corner, and two Morans on the table edges to guard them with their Koalas. Notably, one of the Morans is in camouflage instead of bringing a Repeater. On the left flank, there is also a Morlock with E/M CCW hiding behind a building. He rolls up Climbing Plus. Two Moderators set up in the far back of the DZ, watching the table edges and providing order support. Hiding behind a barricade, an Interventor Lt lies in wait, ready for any poor souls to walk into his repeater net. On the right flank, a Clockmaker hides behind an advertising screen, with his helper-bot tucked in a corner behind a large building. Hmmm seems like a good place for a…

PanO Reserve:
I deploy my Jotum aggressively, in Line of Sight of a Warcor and the Camouflage Moran. Deploying on a building has given me access to some Lines of Sight that my opponent wasn’t anticipating. My Machinist deploys prone behind the Jotum, taking cover behind a barricade just in case there are any impact template surprises. His helper bot sets up on the left flank, partially because I plan to move the Jotum in that direction eventually, and partially in case I need to use it to detonate the Koala that’s in my way.

Nomads Reserve:
Sure enough, Nomads have called in the big guns. The new Gator Squadron TAG sets up safely behind a large building, next to the helper bot.

It’s going to be a 200pt TAG fight.

PanO -
I have an Echo Bravo waiting on standby with WildParrots in tow. All I have to do is clear the way for him to land and start causing havoc on my enemy. Thanks to the intense strength of the Jotum’s armor, I know I can win as long as we take out any threat that can take him on.
The Jotum activates, declaring a discover at the enemy camouflaged Moran. Fearing discovery, the Moran reveals and dodges. In the distance, an enemy Warcor attempts to flash the Jotum. The Jotum is affected by a Jungle saturation zone, but manages to kill the Moran, but not the Warcor. Next, the Jotum spent its Lieutenant order to engage the Warcor and an enemy flash bot. The range is long, but we’re able to engage through a gap in Saturation. The flash bot fails its dodge and dies, the Warcor is also removed. Now, it’s showtime.

My Echo Bravo gets the notice that his landing zone is clear. He glides to a stop behind cover on the right flank. Dangerously close to the enemy Koala, but thankfully out of reach. He takes a wide path around the Moran, in order to avoid the deployable and any Spotlight attacks from the Interventor. On the way, he deploys a Wild Parrot on the rooftop where the Moran is hiding. Moving forward, he deploys a second Wild Parrot in a way that threatens both the Gator and the servant bot. With my final order, the Echo Bravo climbs the stairs to get eyes on the Gator and Moran.. The goal was to force the Gator to perform an ARO in order to spray him with E/M from the WildParrot. To my utter annoyance, the Gator stood there and mocked me, declaring no ARO and opting to just tank the shotgun saves. The Moran attempted to dodge his own Wildparrot, but failed, isolating himself and his comms equipment. My Echo Bravo sprayed his light shotgun rounds down upon the Gator and servant bot. Frustratingly, the Gator passed both armor saves, though the servant bot did not survive. In this interaction, the Interventor managed to Spotlight my Echo Bravo, scoring a Classified. Unfortunately for me, I also walked too close to the Koala, and my Echo Bravo was killed in the explosion.

Still, I was able to remove some orders, and I had effectively disabled the remaining Moran. Even though the Gator taunted me by ignoring my WildParrot during my turn, he still had to deal with it somehow on my opponent’s turn. I was so starved for orders that my Jotum just had to stay standing on this rooftop. In cover, but dangerously visible from the table. My opponent’s turn might decide this game early.

Nomads -
With the WildParrot staring down his most expensive piece, my opponent opted to shoot at the WildParrot from afar with his Clockmaker. Hilariously, the Clockmaker failed to destroy it on the first order, costing even more investment to get rid of this equipment. Once the Gator was free, it moved to engage my Jotum. Thankfully, it couldn’t get line of sight on its first movement, so it opted to fire some mines in the midfield using its Mine Dispenser. I’m okay with this, because it’s just more orders he’s not using to shoot my Jotum.
Finally, the time is here. The TAG showdown. Gator is firing AP Rounds from his MultiHMG, and my Jotum is firing a Panzerfaust.

My eyes go wide in the first volley. The Gator CRITS as well as beats my Jotum’s shot. 4 rounds bounce off hardened metal, the 5th managing to find its way through the behemoth’s armor. One Structure down, two to go.
I’m sweating going into the second encounter. This time, our shots match perfectly, shots colliding in the air.
Second to last order, third engagement. At last, my Jotum wins the F2F. Incredibly, the panzerfaust lodges straight into the Gator’s optical sensors, blowing it clean off. The Gator FAILS all 3 saves and falls unconscious.

Desperate to give the Gator a fighting chance, the final order is spent on the Clockmaker who fires two Gizmokits at the heavily damaged TAG. One shot goes wide, and the other connects!.... Only for a spark to set the frame ablaze. The Gator is gone.

PanO-
The tide has vastly shifted in PanOceania’s favor. Now, my Nomad adversary only has two hopes of even damaging the Jotum. The Morlock with E/M CCW and the Interventor. There could be something off the table too, so I can’t get too excited yet.
I order the Machinist to repair the structural damage that the Jotum took. It still had 2 structure left, but we can’t take any chances. The Machinist nearly made the damage worse before I Commanded him to take a second look. This action scored me a Test Run classified. As he repaired the Jotum, he sent his servant bot to detonate the rightmost Koala left behind by the Camo Moran.
Next, I needed to reinforce the center of the table. Since there were no more units on ARO, I was able to move my leftmost Auxilia up to the center Panoply. He used his Auxbot to detonate the two mines that the Gator left behind. My Zulu Cobra also moved up to the center Panoply and pulled out a Multi Rifle.

Because my opponent’s main threats to the Jotum relied on being relatively close, I opted to move him to the far back left section of my DZ. This could have been a big mistake if my opponent had any AD units, because I foolishly moved my Jotum to an area of the table that had next to no support from other units. We’ll see.

With my final order, I coordinated suppression.

Nomads -
Thankfully, it was beginning to look like my opponent was running out of tricks. His Moran attempted to clear the isolated state, with the hopes of going on an attack run while also extending the Interventor’s hacking range, but failed.
The Morlock carefully tossed smoke and moved up the field. Lunging out of the smoke, he fired his Chain Rifle upon my Auxilia and Zulu Cobra. The Auxilia fired, killing the Morlock, but dying in the process. The Zulu Cobra passed his dodge.

The Interventor moved up to the same nook that the Gator hid in during deployment and sent a FastPanda forward to increase his hacking net.
With nothing else to do, the enemy Clockmaker moved forward to take shots at my Machinist. My Machinist’s superior weapons training sent the Clockmaker unconscious.

PanO -
We really have the Nomads on the run now. Time to finish the job. My Jotum moved up the left flank, vaulting up on top of a building in order to secure the enemy HVT. During this movement, he got Line of Sight to the isolated Moran. When the firing stopped, what was left of the Moran didn’t need to worry too much about being isolated anymore.

The last thing to do was make a run on the Interventor. Thankfully, my Zulu Cobra was stealthy enough to move through the repeater net without warning the Interventor that someone was stalking them. Moving up to the same location where the Echo Bravo died earlier, the Zulu Cobra fired upon the Interventor Lt. Thanks to the Mutli Rifle that he picked up earlier, we weren’t having to chip through the impressive BTS 9 of the Interventor with our breaker combi. With the Interventor killed, the head was cut off the snake.

Nomads -
With no remaining command structure, there was only one chance to stop me from getting more points. My opponent spent his last command tokens to turn his final 3 orders regular. The remaining flash bot was planning to run the gauntlet of AROs in order to prevent me from securing the HVT.
Unfortunately for the flash bot, he didn’t survive the first attack from the Zulu Cobra, who fired a DA shot from his Multi Rifle.
With only two Moderators left, they decided to kill what they could. The first Moderator took on the Zulu Cobra, but failed the F2F and died.
The final Moderator moved out of cover and finally gunned down the Zulu Cobra. They raised their fist in a cheer, only to be blown to smithereens by a Jotum’s Panzerfaust.
Final Nomad down.

This whole game came down to the TAG fight. It was extremely unlucky for the Gator to fail all 3 armor saves against the Jotum’s Panzerfaust. I felt that even though I didn’t have many orders in this 200pt game, the reason I was able to win is because I was able to get some very important kills at the beginning. Not only was I starving my opponent’s orders, but I was able to keep the scariest units at a distance. Thanks to my opponent for hanging in there!