Durgama Takeover

NCA wins the Lt roll. This time, I chose deployment zone and asked my opponent to set up first. Nomads choose to go first, giving me the advantage on the last turn for capturing the objective.

Nomads Deployment:
A Moran deploys on the right flank, poised to take control of the rightmost Antenna. On the right flank, a Diablo deploys hidden behind cover. In the back right corner, an EVO bot prepares to provide assisted fire to friendly remotes. In the center, near the back, a Total Reaction Zond deploys with eyes on the center objective and a long firelane. A warcor deploys watching the same firelane with her flash pulse. A clockmaker crouches near the TR bot, ready to keep it running.
On the left side of the DZ, a Stempler Zond deploys watching a short firelane with Jazz and Billie nearby. Two Moderators bring up the rear, spread out. One is likely the Lt.

NCA Deployment:
The Diablo is a unit that definitely concerns me. If it gets within berserking range of any of my units, they’re almost certainly dead. I decided to attempt a castle strategy. High risk, high reward. I’ll be grouping my units up a lot, but I’m hoping that they’ll be able to watch each other’s backs should that Diablo get close.
I deploy a 2-man Bolt Fireteam and a 3-man Fusilier Fireteam, castling up on the left corner of my DZ. (The farthest place away from the Diablo)

Aida sets up on the right side of my DZ, with the goal of placing a mine that threatens the enemy Moran from moving for the objective. These large DZs really help boost her Forward Deployment.
Uma takes advantage of her climbing plus to deploy on the top of a large stack of crates. I’m hoping she’ll be completely safe up there and will be able to swoop down to take the objectives on turn 3.

Nomads Reserve:
I was surprised to see that my opponent’s Reserve was a Vostok. That’s a really scary piece that has the potential to really bully my units. I only have one unit with MSV in this list. They deploy on a rooftop with the intention of immediately killing one of my flash bots.

NCA Reserve:
I was fearing a TAG, but now I’m more worried. I kept my Bolt Sniper with MSV1 in reserve because I thought it would be useful for counter-deploying whatever my opponent placed down. But now I’m stuck. I can’t place my Bolt Sniper on ARO because otherwise my opponent is just going to throw up White Noise and “smoke-trick” her. Since I have two 3-man fireteams, that means no sixth sense. Because of this, I decide to just null-deploy. I’m hoping that it’ll take enough orders to get over to me that the Diablo will only be able to kill one or two models. My flash bots might slow him down as well.

Nomads -
Sure enough, Nomads come out swinging. The Vostok takes shots at my Flash bot. I considered trying to flash in a desperate hope to blind the Vostok, but knowing the Diablo was another threat, I hoped to stall for more time. The Flash bot attempted a dodge, but was gunned down. Next, the Diablo sprung into action. Thanks to being nominated the Master Breacher, he had some extra movement and D-charges in his pocket. This allowed him to accomplish some really key cautious moves and prone movements to completely avoid my second Flash bot. Thankfully, he got a bit careless at the end and took a long range Viral Pistol ARO from Aida. Aida HIT, but even though he had no BTS, he slipped away in the Battle Ravaged state thanks to being shock immune.

The Diablo carefully sliced through my units’ LoF, knocking the Machinist unconscious. In this engagement, my Fusiliers and Bolts managed to dodge to more defensible positions. The Bolt Sniper managed to dodge away far enough that the Diablo had to chase her.
The Diablo rushed into CC, and rolled extremely low. My Bolt Sniper had a chance! Dang. She rolled a 17! One off from a crit, but a miss nonetheless. The Bolt Paramedic avenged her with his shotgun. Both the Diablo and the Bolt Sniper were removed.

NCA -
We’re hurting a little bit, but we can do this. Losing the Machinist means we aren’t repairing our Fugazi, and of course the MSV on the Bolt Sniper would have been handy for taking out the Vostok.

Thankfully, we put our most basic units through top-notch shooting training here in PanO! The Fusilier HMG in my Haris maneuvered to the right, getting eyes on both the Vostok and the Warcor at long range. The odds aren’t great, but thanks to range and cover, we’ve evened the odds of this shootout and my Fusi HMG has 5 times the shots. Incredibly, the Vostok fails two saves and goes unconscious. The Warcor is also removed in this shootout. The Fusiliers have done it again!

It’s not over yet. We can’t ignore that there’s still an engineer hiding back there. We absolutely cannot risk this Vostok getting back up again.

Thankfully, Uma is in a perfect elevated position in order to see the unconscious bot. She moves up and peppers the frame with shots from her SMG. The remains of the Vostok crumple and it is removed.

With only two orders left, Uma places an E/M Mine right on the edge of her perch and moves back while prone. Then she goes back into camo.

Putting Uma into camo was a slight misplay, because I failed to remember that there was a Stempler Zond right there. The Zond moved up and Sensored the area, revealing Uma and the mine with ease.
The Moran used this opportunity to sneak over to Uma’s perch and deploy a Koala. If they couldn’t shoot her up there easily, at least the Koala could.

Next, the Zond moved up to the objective and successfully activated it before settling into Suppressive fire on the left flank. Uma elected to not move, out of fear of triggering the Koala.
The EVO bot placed Assisted Fire on the Stempler Zond, giving it an even further edge in its defense.
Jazz goes into Cybermask.

NCA -
Nomads can use hacking to give their bots marksmanship, but my Bolts come with it standard. My Bolt Paramedic has been waiting for an opportunity to show why PanO ballistics training is nothing to joke about.
The Bolt Paramedic moved up to the Suppressing zond and rounded the corner to challenge it. It’s a risky play, but very rewarding if I can pull it off. I’m also hoping to bait Jazz out of her cybermask, but she doesn’t react. The Bolt wins the firefight and moves up to the Antenna.
After successfully pressing the button, he pushes this advantage further. As we move into the enemy DZ, we get eyes on the Koala that is pinning Uma, easily shooting and removing it.
Finally, we round the corner to get eyes on Billie, Cybermasked Jazz, and the back arc of a Clockmaker in the distance.
Once again, Jazz does not reveal herself, so the Bolt guns down Billie in front of her.
Next, the Bolt declares a discover on Jazz. Finally giving up, she reveals and attempts to shoot back, but the Bolt’s combi tears through her.

For the final order, the Bolt attempts to shoot the Clockmaker in the back, but the Clockmaker passes his armor saves.

To add to my order pool for the final turn, I land my Garuda Spitfire on my side of the table.

That Bolt’s attack run was decisive. Nomad forces are reeling.
The Moran moves up to the rightmost antenna, attempting to dodge Aida’s viral mine. He fails and dies.

The Moderator Lt peeks out from her hiding spot in a desperate attempt to kill the Bolt. The Bolt destroys her with his Light Shotgun.
Next, the TR Bot attempts to make a move for the center objective, coming into LoF of the Bolt. A shootout ensues, but the Bolt’s superior Ballistic Skill knocks the TR Bot unconscious. The clockmaker moves his servant bot into B2B to repair the bot and succeeds. In a last ditch effort, the TR bot runs up to the objective. It succeeds in getting into B2B, but must engage in one last shootout with the Fusilier HMG. Once again, PanO training prevails and the TR bot falls unconscious.

NCA -
With no more enemies watching to stop our advance, I coordinated some movement. The Bolt took up a position on the leftmost Antenna that he had activated earlier. My Garuda and Aida moved to hold the center objective. My remaining Fugazi ran up to detonate the Koala that was guarding the rightmost antenna, successfully dodging. Finally, Uma made a mad dash to get into B2B with the rightmost antenna. She attempted to activate it 3 times, but failed each one. Ah, well, that’s PanO for you right there.

Once again the Bolts proved that they can bully people even with Combis. Once they get some momentum going, they feel so great. Uma did a great job distracting as always, and Aida got that lucky hit on the Diablo. I think the biggest downfall of my opponent’s strategy was not hiding the Vostok on his first turn, or at least putting Assisted Fire on it. Thanks for the game, Yeethan!