@thekiln, any idea what was the order of the partitions? I think I'm making some progress, I get a screen with battery indication, then nothing.
Here is the partition distribution that took me into fastboot:
device=/dev/sdb
dd if=modem_16384.bin of=${device}1
dd if=sbl1_147456.bin of=${device}2
dd if=rpm_149504.bin of=${device}3
dd if=tz_150528.bin of=${device}4
dd if=sdi_151552.bin of=${device}5
dd if=aboot_152576.bin of=${device}6
dd if=rpmb_156672.bin of=${device}7
dd if=tzb_157696.bin of=${device}8
dd if=abootb_158720.bin of=${device}9
dd if=persist_212992.bin of=${device}15
dd if=boot_327680.bin of=${device}17
dd if=recovery_376832.bin of=${device}18
dd if=sbl1b_444416.bin of=${device}22
dd if=rct_447488.bin of=${device}24
dd if=factory_492544.bin of=${device}28
dd if=cust_688128.bin of=${device}31
based on a list found here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54837231&postcount=5
I can boot into TWRP recovery and it says it installs cm-12.1-20151117-SNAPSHOT-YOG7DAO1K5-v400.zip but then boots back into fastboot.
I also tried installing TWRP into the phone memory with
sudo fastboot flash recovery ~/Downloads/TWRP_2.8.5.0_v400_bumped.img
but can't boot into it.
So I'm stuck with fastboot and launching TWRP from the computer