Admiral Dimitry Orlov
scanned the horizon from his flagship.
It was a good feeling:
“ADMIRAL Orlov”. His time in court helped secured his
position, but hard work and a good record in his naval career in the service of
the Tsar (not to mention impeccable contacts in court), surely good things
were due him.
After sailing from the
port at St. Petersburg, he was just going to do a shake-down cruise of his new Battleship
Georgy Pobedonosets ("St George the Victorious" in English). It would also give him a chance to evaluate
the abilities of his Battle Group.
Looking into the skies, he could see the squadrons of fighters and
bombers escorting his ships out into the Baltic Sea. Admiral Orlov couldn’t wait to get his group
into shape: the Prussians were a nuisance and he couldn’t wait to make a name
for himself…
“Admiral Orlov; the
bombers are reporting a fleet moving to intercept us just beyond the island.”
“Are they ours? Prussians?”
“No sir, not ours. They’re not Prussian either. We think they’re from Antarctica.”
“Antarctica? What are they doing here? Have the Radio Room contact them and warn
them off.”
“Sir! They refuse to respond. What are your orders?”
“Our standing orders are to drive all foreign ships away from our
waters. Call all ships to Battle
Stations! It looks like we’re breaking
in the guns sooner than I expected.”
So Geoff showed up at the FLGS with an Antarctican Fleet and
had never played against the Russians, so we decided to go with the basic box
sets:
-
Battleship- 3 Cruisers
- 9 Frigates (3 Squadrons of 3 each)
- 2 Bombers
- 2 squadrons of Tiny Fliers
The Russian Coalition (RC) would use the Mimic Generator on
the battleship, and both squadrons of Tiny Fliers would act as fighters. (Russians have horrible AA for the most
part.) The Cruisers bought the “Rocket
Jammer” upgrades just to increase the point costs (I couldn’t remember if CoA
used rockets or not).
The Covenant of Antarctica (CoA) bought the “Inventive
Scientists” for his cruisers, and deployed his 2 squadrons of drones as
Fighters as well.
Using random deployment, Terrain on the 4’ X 4’ table was a
single island on my left half of the board and a sand bar on my right
side. CoA caught RC coming out of the
port!
Deployment:
Russians: (White/ Ghost Grey) (L to R) Frigates, Bombers with Battleship behind facing off to the right, Fighters, Frigates with Cruisers behind, fighters and frigates.
Antarctica: (Green) (Russian L to R): Frigates, Fighters, frigates, fighters,
cruisers, bombers, battleship, frigates.
CoA: Rolled the Capture the Commodore’s ship. He wisely decided to go to default 70% of
fleet value (~490pts)
RC: Rolled Sink all Large and Massive Squadrons. As this was ONLY a battleship, I figured “why
not?”
Turn 1:
Russians (RC) got the Initiative!
Turn 1 started very cautiously on both sides. Some Fighters and Frigates all moved forward
on both sides. Finally, the CoA Cruisers
advanced and fired on one of the Russian Frigate Squadrons – and Missed!!! At this point, one of the Russian Frigate
Squadrons moved forward between the island and the sand bar. The Russian Frigates went to lob mortar
shells at a CoA Frigate Squadron hiding behind the island, but we realized I
could only lob shells over Models – NOT terrain. Too bad!
A squadron of CoA Frigates tried to circle around the Left
of the island, to sneak behind the Russian lines. A Russian Frigate squadron moved to the left
of the island and was able to split fire between two COA Frigate squadrons,
sinking 1 frigate in each! One squadron
failed its break test, but the other was able to maintain order. First blood to the Russians! The rest of the squadrons on both sides
jockeyed for position, but no other shooting or damage was made.
Turn 2:
Antarctica Won the Initiative!
Antarctica Won the Initiative!
Russians played “Lost Orders” card on the Antarcticans, but
they cancelled the effects sacrificing a card of their own.
The CoA Frigates running around the left side of the island
damaged 1 bomber with AA and damaged a frigate with torpedoes! The RC Frigates retaliate, gunning 1 frigate
squadron and using mortars on another, causing a Hull Point (HP) of damage on
each squadron!
CoA fighters attacked an RC fighter squadron: 4 CoA drones
were shot down while the Russians used up an extra fuel due to Abort
results. The same RC fighter flight then
went full throttle and attacked a CoA Bomber in the clouds, causing 1 point of
damage for the cost of 1 Fighter Token.
Antarctica retaliated by attacking the RC bombers with their own
squadron, though Russian AA shot down 2 tokens of drones, for no damage to the
bombers!
RC Frigates in the center advance forward, and got within
range band 2 of the Battleship! Linking
fire and shooting guns at a cruiser and mortars at the battleship, they managed
to put a crit on the Cruiser (Systems), caused 1 HP on the CoA Battleship, then
put another HP on the CoA Bomber with their AA!
Outraged, the CoA Cruisers advanced forward, shot down 2
fighter tokens with AA, caused 1 HP damage on a frigate in the center frigate
squadron, sank a frigate in the right side frigates (who passed their Break
Test, then played the “Tally Ho!” card – moving another squadron right
away! Who moved? The CoA Battleship! Crossing on an angle from right to left, the
CoA Battleship got line of sight to the central RC Frigate squadron, and sank
2!
The Russians were now out for blood, but grateful! By sinking the 2 Frigates, the way was
cleared for the RC Cruiser to maneuver through the gap and fire upon the CoA Battleship. The guns caused a crit on the Battleship:
Fusion Leak!
CoA Frigates move forward and attack! Their torpedoes failed to damage a cruiser
(thanks Ablative Armor!), but their broadsides were able to cause 1 HP to a
frigate and another to a cruiser, then caused fighters to use an extra fuel as
they forced an “Abort” result with their AA attack!
RC frigates behind the sand bar stood still (we can do that
– 0” min move!), and unleashed both guns and mortars at the damaged cruiser –
and sank it!
CoA Bombers advanced forward and fired on the RC Fighters
nearby, destroying the remaining fighters of the flight. RC Bombers advanced as well, flying near the
CoA Bombers. (I thought of shooting AA
as I passed but realized the Russian Bombers only had 2 AA each, vs. the 4 AA
each the CoA had. Russians would have
gotten the worst of it.)
In an amazing display of Seamanship, a CoA frigate squadron
managed to snake their way through their own cruiser squadron, without a single
collision, sank the last frigate of one frigate squadron and an HP damage to a
cruiser. The RC Battleship moved forward
but had no shot and in the final move of the turn, the remaining Russian
Fighter Squadron attacked the CoA Bombers, but lost 3 of 5 tokens for no damage
to the bombers! OUCH!
In the repair cycle, the CoA repaired the Fusion Leak on the
Battleship.
Turn 3:
CoA played “Pass The Tools” and repaired all but 1 HP of damage
to the Battleship!
CoA won initiative, too!
CoA Frigates on left side of the island do a 180 turn and attack
the RC Frigates, sinking 1 and causing the squadron to break!
RC Cruisers played the “Running Repairs” card, fixing 1
cruiser to full hull (though no Ablative Armor), moved forward and fired on the
Battleship again. The engineers of the Battleship
did wonders, coaxing the shield generators to save 8 hits! The battleship still took 1 HP of
damage. RC broadsides out both sides
only managed to damage 1 frigate.
The CoA battleship maneuvered to fire its Particle Cannon at
the remaining frigates on the left, obliterating both! The Battleship’s broadsides crit 1 cruiser
(Systems) then the turrets sink another cruiser with another crit.
The RC Bombers made their attack run on the CoA Battleship –
if they were lucky, they would sink it and win the game! The Battleship’s AA critted one bomber on the
way in, but both made their “Hard Impact” attacks, causing 3 HP damage and a
Nav Lock Crit! Unfortunately, using the
bombers this way cost the Russians the bombers as it is a Suicide attack –
giving the CoA a “free 100 points”…
The CoA Frigates on the right failed to hit some frigates
with their broadsides, but the torpedo run on a cruiser cost a cruiser it’s
Ablative Armor and 1 HP.
The RC Battleship split its fire, Main Turret on one
cruiser, the two upper turrets concentrated on the other. The main turret missed but the two upper
turrets double-crit and sank the other cruiser.
The CoA Bombers attacked a cruiser, causing a crit (Nav
Lock) as their AA shot down another fighter token.
RC frigates moved up slowly over the sand bar; fired on and
damaged a frigate and a cruiser (1 HP each).
CoA Cruisers retaliated by sinking a frigate, though the remaining
frigate passed its Break Test.
Ending the turn, the RC Fighters attacked the bombers, only
to be shot down! The Center squadron of
CoA Frigates moved forward, collided with the RC cruisers and sank! CoA still had 3 tokens of Fighters, but with
no other RC fliers on the table and no way to land, the CoA Drones were useless
for the rest of the game!
Both the CoA and the RC failed to repair the Nav Lock crits
on their ships!
Turn 4:
Both RC & CoA played “Pass The Tools” cards. CoA repaired 3 HP of the Battleship and the
RC repaired 3 HP off 1 cruiser!
RC won Initiative!
RC moved their remaining cruisers straight ahead, firing at
the Battleship, causing 1 HP (3 HP gone), then played “Tally Ho!” allowing a 2nd
squadron to activate! The RC Battleship
activated; turned towards the enemy Battleship but collided with a Frigate
(sinking it). This turn only allowed the
RC Battleship to bring 2 of 3 turrets to bear.
Firing anyway, the RC Battleship caused another HP to the Battleship and
another HP to a cruiser with the one turret that was out of arc.
The CoA Battleship played “Running Repairs”, fixing 1 HP (3
gone), then fired on one of the cruisers, causing a crit (Engine Damage).
The last remaining move for the Russians was their remaining
frigate moving and sinking another CoA Frigate.
As the RC were out of units, the CoA were able to move and
attack with impunity. Their target: the
two remaining RC Cruisers. The CoA
Cruisers failed to damage anything. The bombers
cause 2 HP on 1 cruiser; a squadron of frigates torpedoed and caused another hp
on another. The hero of the match was
the lone surviving frigate of 1 squadron, did a 180 degree turn, broadsided and
sank 1 cruiser, then torpedoed and sank the other!
End of turn, we calculated the points and the CoA earned 510
points, more than the ~490 points they required to meet their objective. The RC needed to sink the Battleship for
their objective, but the Battleship still had 5 HP left.
CoA Won!!!
Great Game! It
literally could have gone either way! In
fact, if we hadn’t used the card decks, the CoA Battleship would have been sunk
as it repaired 5 Hull Points during the game and only had 5 Hull Points left
before they reached their 70%!!!
CoA commander declared that the lone Frigate Captain that
finished off the 2 cruisers by himself was the VIP of the game. He named the Captain Gravonski – I expect
he’ll get promoted to Admiral soon…
What did the Russians learn?
For one thing; they may be called “Fighters”, but they’re
not very good…
Ablative Armor is nice, but it really only gets you 1
“extra” turn to get into range. If we
hadn’t had an island to protect our Capital Ships’ approach, it would have been
a lot worse for the Russians.
The Russian Bombers performing their “Hard Impact” attacks
were significant at the time, but unfortunately the Battleship repaired the
destruction they caused, and basically gave the CoA a free 100 points towards
their goal. I probably should have kept
them flying longer and dropped bombs only for a turn or two (if they could have
survived long enough to do that) before committing them like that…
Finally, the heroes of the Russian Fleet were probably the
Russian Frigates. I lost all but 1, but
their contribution can’t be denied.
Admiral Dimitry Orlov
was upset! The Antarctic Battleship
shouldn’t be floating! The damage
inflected on it was more than enough to sink any ship! What sort of material did they use to build
their ships in Antarctica???
If he was honest, Orlov
realized he wasted too many resources going after the Battleship. He lost all his cruisers, his bombers, his fighters
and almost all his frigates! At least
the Battleship Georgy Pobedonosets was intact.
The only thing he
could do was to go to court and face the Tsar himself and apologize.
The Tsar wouldn’t
be pleased!
Maybe if Orlov could
put the blame on the Cruiser squadron Commodore. He was from a minor family with few political
connections. If Orlov made arrangements with
the Family, offered to support another heir and promote him through Court. They may be willing to play along. If he did it right, Orlov would appear in
much better light, almost compassionate.
It could work…
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